The elimination of nuclear weapons is an urgent medical, humanitarian, and public health imperative. Learn more and get involved today.
Peace and Health Blog
- We helped people grasp what a nuclear war would really be likeby IPPNW on January 31, 2025 at 5:32 pm
[On January 28, Dr. Eric Chivian, one of IPPNW’s founders in the 1960s, spoke at Harvard University’s Countway Library at an event entitled “Prescriptions for Peace: Physician Activism in the Nuclear Age, 1961-1985.” The event accompanied the launch of the Center for the History of Medicine’s “Prescriptions for Peace” exhibition on physician anti-nuclear activism, 1961-1985. The
- The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides a way to avert nuclear catastropheby Lawrence Wittner on January 24, 2025 at 8:36 pm
Will the world ever be free of the menace of nuclear annihilation? There was a promising start along these lines during the late twentieth century, when―pressed by a popular upsurge against nuclear weapons―the nations of the world adopted a succession of nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements. Starting with the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, these agreements
- IPPNW action at COP29 for disarmament, climate justice and healthby Bimal Khadka on December 12, 2024 at 5:58 pm
For the 29th UN climate conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, IPPNW and its UK affiliate, Medact, sent official delegations to highlight human and environmental health. The IPPNW team emphasized that the climate crisis, militarisation, and nuclear weapons pose a severe threat to global health, stressed that the climate crisis exacerbates conflict and inequality, and called for addressing fossil-fuel dependence
- Resistance to the International Criminal Court by the world’s most powerful nationsby Lawrence Wittner on December 4, 2024 at 8:33 pm
The International Criminal Court’s recent issuance of arrest warrants to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza has stirred up a considerable backlash. Dismissing the charges as “absurd and false,” Netanyahu announced that Israel would “not recognize the validity” of the ICC’s action. US President Joe Biden denounced the arrest
- A government for the worldby Lawrence Wittner on November 18, 2024 at 3:09 pm
Donald Trump’s latest rollout of his hyper nationalist “America First” policy underscores the world’s long-term slide toward catastrophe. Within nations, when conflicts inevitably erupt, there are laws, as well as police, courts, and governments that enforce the laws. On the global level, however, the situation approaches international anarchy. Although the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and the International
Earlier this month, IPPNW, ICAN, and Pugwash hosted a webinar, “Autonomous Armageddon: Nuclear Weapons and AI“, to explore the alarming dangers posed by the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into nuclear weapons systems.
The expert panel discussed the general and specific risks AI presents to nuclear command and control systems, the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear war, and ongoing initiatives to mitigate these threats.
On October 11, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it was awarding the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots group of Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again,” sending a message to countries that are considering acquiring or threatening to use them.
This recognition is significant and appropriate as we approach the 80th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Hibakusha have worked for decades to bear witness to the horrors of nuclear war and are central to our common goal of banning and eliminating nuclear weapons.
In March 2023, IPPNW established a new office in Geneva, the “Peace Capital” of the world. In just a year, IPPNW’s presence in the center for medicine and world peace is facilitating our ability to better coordinate with the like-minded organizations. Major highlights include meeting with WHO Director General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, to discuss the renewal of the WHO’s 1987 study, “Effects of Nuclear War on Health and Health Services”; coordinating more than 150 medical journals, including the Lancet and the British Medical Journal, to call for urgent steps to decrease the growing danger of nuclear war; participating in Norwegian People’s Aid and the ICRC’s NukeEXPO in Brussels and Oslo; and much more.