International Joint Youth Statement

Honorable President and Distinguished Delegates,

We stand before you today, honored, and grateful to represent young citizens from around the world. 

We are here on behalf of a generation that has been consistently neglected by government policies and decisions. We are here on behalf of a generation that was born into a nuclear regime that we neither built nor consented to. Many of our own grandparents were born into a world where nuclear weapons were nonexistent. But our generation—the inheritors of this planet and the future leaders of the international peace and security movement—was not so fortunate. It’s estimated that in the year 2000—around the time that many of us were born—there were over 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world: enough to end life on earth as we know it more than a hundred times over.

 And every passing year in which that stockpile grew, remained stagnant, or decreased by only marginal amounts represented your decision, nuclear weapon states and their allies, to raise us, your descendants, with a nuclear sword of Damocles looming over our heads. You kept us safe only in the most insignificant of ways: you gave us medicine when we were sick, you told us to look both ways when crossing the street. But when it comes to the greatest threat to our safety—nuclear weapons—you continue to expand your nuclear arsenals and endangered us all.  

Distinguished Delegates,

It is 100 seconds to midnight, and “the doorstep of doom is no place to loiter.” On top of killing tens of millions of people, the deployment of nuclear weapons would ravage our planet in gargantuan ways, and we, as young people and citizens of the world, will suffer these consequences for decades to come. Scientific studies show that the detonation of even a limited number of nuclear weapons—a negligible portion of the global nuclear stockpile—would cause unprecedented devastation to our beloved planet and all of humankind. As long as nuclear weapons exist, every war brings with it the risk of nuclear war. In light of nuclear threats made by Russia in the context of the Ukraine War, this reality has not been more apparent in our lifetimes. The time to act is now, and we cannot afford to remain complacent.

Distinguished Delegates,

As the inheritors of this planet, we demand not only that you heed our call, but that you act and free us from the anguish wrought by the nuclear threat. We do not want to live in fearful uncertainty any longer. It is vital that we recognize the intersection between the nuclear and climate threats. Due to nuclear tests carried out by the US, UK, France, Russia, China, and other nuclear-armed states, frontline communities in the Marshall Islands, French Polynesia, Kazakhstan, and many other places are already experiencing the combined consequences of nuclear weapons and climate change. These range from public health crises caused by radiogenic illnesses to the threat of continued nuclear radiation spreading into the rising seas. Communities directly impacted by nuclear proliferation already understand that there is no such thing as a greener, healthier, fairer world in which nuclear weapons still exist. Why is it that nuclear testing conducted by nuclear weapon states overwhelmingly impacted and continues to impact Indigenous peoples and their lands? Why is it that over half of the people who live in close proximity to toxic waste facilities are people of color? We must recognize that nuclear weapons are cogs in deeply rooted and interconnected systems of oppression, injustice, and violence including racism, sexism, ableism, classism, and heteropatriarchy which view BIPOC, women, groups living in poverty, the disabled, members of the LGBT+ community, and other marginalized groups as disposable. We must recognize that these communities are always going to bear the brunt of nuclear weapons production, use, and testing, as well as climate change, and act accordingly.

Distinguished Delegates, 

 For decades, this body has had the opportunity to ensure that our generation can live in peace, without the fear that igniting geopolitical flames will lead to nuclear wildfires. However, due to your own inaction in the face of that opportunity, the threat of nuclear proliferation and warfare is at the top of a list of crises that will follow us throughout our lives and bleed into the lives of our children.

Distinguished Delegates,

 A world order which allows the minority in power, be it states or even individuals, to threaten the majority with extinction is fundamentally unjust. It is beyond irresponsible, even Orwellian, to claim that these weapons of mass destruction represent a means of attaining global peace and security. The defective logic of nuclear deterrence has always been, as Ray Acheson has written, “that we need [nuclear weapons] in order to never use them.” Nuclear weapons have never safeguarded human beings: they only serve to safeguard power. They are not a means to peace: they are the very obstacle preventing its achievement. 

The best gift that any generation can give to the next is the opportunity to enjoy a lifetime of peace. You have denied us that gift, but we are still determined to give it to future generations.

 Including youth voices in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation advocacy and policymaking is paramount to the creation of policies that not only benefit individual politicians and states, but all of humanity. We defend our right to have a say in your policies and political decisions, because their consequences will determine the fate of our generation and that of our posterity. We demand a say in the choices that shape our destinies.

 If you refuse to consider the past or look towards the future, we implore you, the delegates, to consider yourselves: is this the world you wish to build? Is this the legacy you wish to leave behind? Will your nations remember you as deliverers of hope and peace, or executioners of violence and oppression? Will this moment be immortalized in history books as one of progress or selfish inaction?

We are the representatives of the youth. We demand seats at the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation decision-making table, and we will not be silenced.

 Thank you.

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Supporting Organizations

●      Be Human (Singapore), Instagram: @behumaninc

●      DFG-VK

●      K=1 Project of Columbia University

●      KAKUWAKA Hiroshima

●      KNOW NUKES TOKYO

●      Marshallese Educational Initiative

●      New Detroit, A Racial Justice Organization

●      Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

●      Peace Action New York State

●      Peace Boat

●      PEAC Institute

●      Physicians for Social Responsibility

●      Reverse The Trend: Save Our People, Save Our Planet

●      Soka Gakkai International (SGI)

●      The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War’s Medical Student Movement

●      Youth for TPNW