ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, has made significant progress in the last year, but according to core member Akira Kawasaki the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize winning coalition is just getting started.
ICAN, based in Geneva and launched in 2007, now has around 450 partner organizations in nearly a hundred countries. The process of building itself into a force for peace has had its challenges, but on July 7 last year, this "grass-roots civil society coalition" took one big step toward its mission of "worldwide nuclear disarmament," Kawasaki said in an interview. On that day in New York, after years of persuading other countries to support the endeavor, ICAN worked with the United Nations and passed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, initially supported by over 135 countries.
In order for the treaty to become international law, however, it must be signed and ratified by at least 50 nation-states. So far, 60 nations have signed the treaty but only 14 have officially integrated the treaty into their constitution. None of the world nuclear powers have joined and neither has Japan, which relies on the U.S. nuclear umbrella.