IALANA is working with IPPNW and INESAP on revision and re-release of the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention (Model NWC) drafted in 1997 by an international consortium of lawyers, scientists, disarmament experts, physicians and activists. We are also updating and republishing the 1999 book Security and Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which explores the rationales and possibilities for achieving a nuclear weapons convention - a global treaty on the abolition and elimination of nuclear weapons.

The Model NWC was distributed to governments by the United Nations as a discussion document (UN Doc. A/C.1/52/7) and was also submitted to the US Congress. While it generated considerable interest, the Nuclear Weapon States have so far refused to take up the call to negotiate a treaty on the abolition of nuclear weapons. However, political developments since then have made the proposal for a nuclear weapons convention much more cogent. The prestigious Blix Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, for example, concluded recently that:

A nuclear disarmament treaty is achievable and can be reached through careful, sensible and practical measures. Benchmarks should be set; definitions agreed; timetables drawn up and agreed upon; and transparency requirements agreed.

These are just the types of provisions provided in the Model NWC.

The Model NWC and revised book (renamed Securing Our Survival) will be released at the Meeting of States Party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Vienna April 30-May 11.