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Peace Boat Speaks at UN High-Level Meeting on the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
On September 29, 2026, the United Nations convened a High-Level Plenary Meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, observed annually on September 26. Established by the UN General Assembly, the International Day provides an opportunity to reaffirm global nuclear disarmament as a priority, raise public awareness of the threat posed by nuclear weapons and the human and societal costs of their continued existence, and mobilize international efforts toward a nuclear-weapon-free world.
Peace Boat was honoured to participate as one of two civil society representatives invited to address the plenary, alongside Melissa Parke, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Drawing on Peace Boat’s longstanding work with Hibakusha, nuclear-affected communities, and young people around the world, International Coordinator Yuri Kimura spoke about the human consequences of nuclear weapons and the importance of ensuring that those directly affected have a meaningful role in efforts toward disarmament. Her three-minute statement is reproduced below.
Thank you Chair for this opportunity.
Peace Boat has travelled with over 180 Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sharing their testimonies worldwide. Through our Global voyages, we also engage with survivors of nuclear testing, youth from affected islands, Indigenous communities impacted by uranium mining, and nuclear disaster victims from all over the world - known as Global Hibakusha.
As an International Steering Group member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), we call on all states to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to ensure no one suffers as those survivors did. As part of the Japan Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, we urge Japan to not only maintain its Three Non Nuclear Principles, but also to sign and ratify the TPNW as soon as possible.
Listening to testimonies of the Hibakusha - who survived injuries, loss of loved ones and the total destruction of their cities, and still suffer from medical, social and psychological impacts even 81 years later, makes clear that nuclear weapons are an issue of human rights and dignity. Today, nuclear weapons are developed in the name of “national security” and deployed under the theory of deterrence. In reality, what is threatened is our own right to live in peace.
We welcome this month’s first-ever UN meeting on nuclear victims assistance and environmental remediation. As discussed, nuclear weapons use, testing, and production have brought immense suffering and environmental contamination worldwide. Such harm will continue as long as these weapons are developed and maintained. We must stop this injustice now.
We hope that discussions on concrete measures, including establishing an International Trust Fund and a gender-sensitive approach, will advance at the upcoming TPNW First Review Conference. The key is the participation of people impacted by nuclear weapons themselves in the design and implementation of such measures.
Furthermore, we are alarmed at the build-up of nuclear arsenals by the nine nuclear-armed states, both in quantity and quality, and horrified at the increased risk of a nuclear war.
We thus call on all states concerned to:
stop developing or deploying new nuclear weapons, including so called tactical nuclear weapons;
never resume nuclear test explosions, and to cease all nuclear testing, including subcritical tests;
and stop missile tests and exercises for the delivery of nuclear weapons.
We strongly reject the concept of “usable” tactical nuclear weapons. Such so-called “low-yield” weapons still have almost the same explosive power or even more than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. We must never repeat the catastrophe.
Finally, we urge all UN Member States to participate in the upcoming TPNW First Review Conference, reaffirm the unacceptable humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, and declare a joint commitment to their total elimination.
Thank you.