United Nations nuclear weapons ban treaty enters into force

The first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons has entered into force and it creates a historic step for the world against its deadliest weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is now part of international law. The new law culminating a decades-long campaign aimed at preventing a repetition of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

When the treaty was approved by the UN General Assembly in July 2017, more than 120 approved it. But none of the nine countries known or believed to possess nuclear weapons, the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel supported it and neither did the 30-nation NATO alliance. Japan, the world's only country to suffer nuclear attacks, also does not support the treaty.

The treaty requires that all ratifying countries never under any circumstances develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. It also bans any transfer or use of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices and the threat to use such weapons and requires parties to promote the treaty to other countries.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the treaty demonstrated support for multilateral approaches to nuclear disarmament.