Our Shared Responsibility for a Shared Future

Friends,

In our work to abolish nuclear weapons it is often easy to forget how such a complex issue as disarmament interrelates on so many levels with so many other issues.

SECURING A NUCLEAR WEAPON-FREE WORLD TODAY: Our Responsibility to Future Generations is a briefing booklet prepared for those participating in the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It contains some very powerful, persuasive arguments aimed at the decision makers at the NPT Conference.

Beyond the recent NPT conference, the essays in this booklet speak out to all of us engaged in the struggle for a nuclear weapons-free world. The final essay speaks to a holistic vision of peace in which nuclear weapons are only part of a greater conversation because we will never fully disarm until we learn to resolve conflict peacefully, among other things.

The essay, although addressed to world leaders, is also addressed to each of us. It reminds us that nuclear abolition will only occur when all those in power (and indeed all of us) are committed (and here I paraphrase the Quakers) to a world free of war and the threat of war, a world with equity and justice for all, a world where every person's potential may be fulfilled, and an earth restored.

May we all continue working to make it so.

Peace,

Leonard

Appeal to World Leaders

Renew Our Hope for Our Shared Future

We assert our deep desire, our firm commitment,
and our inalienable right to live in harmony
with each other and with nature’s laws of
connectedness and interdependence.

We call upon you to realize how past decisions
and actions have threatened our common future
and have left us surrounded by an unjust and
destructive legacy.

Still, we believe that humanity can rise to its
highest ideals and change course to create the
just and peaceful future we know is possible.

We trust you will fulfill your obligations to us
and future generations by:

* Committing to abolish nuclear weapons and
all weapons of mass destruction.
* Resolving conflicts without resort to military
force, and ending the arms trade.
* Redirecting resources from militarism to
human and ecological security.
* Restoring the health of our Earth and
ending the exploitation of her nonrenewable
resources.
* Upholding human rights and the dignity
of all individuals, and fulfilling your
responsibilities under international law.

We urge you as world leaders to fulfill your
duty as guardians of our unique, beautiful and
endangered Earth. Renew our hope for our
shared future.

Signed by the World Future Councilors of the Disarmament Working Group:

Hafsat Abiola-Costello
Hans-Peter Dürr
Riane Eisler
David Krieger
Rama Mani
Count Hans-Christof von Sponeck
Pauline Tangiora
Judge C.G. Weeramantry