Nuclearban.scot is the Scottish ICAN partner organisations’ shared website, a place to share resources and speak as a Scottish voice for global nuclear disarmament.
ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, is the international campaign to stigmatise, prohibit, and eliminate nuclear weapons. It is a coalition of non-governmental organisations promoting adherence to and implementation of the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), adopted at the UN in July 2017, which entered into force in January of 2021. ICAN was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its contribution to the TPNW’s adoption, and now has more than six hundred partner organisations, including many from the UK and Scotland. Each organisation supports abolition from its own perspective, but all have the same goal of supporting the TPNW and increasing its global reach. The contact information for ICAN and all of the Scottish partner organisations that contribute to this website can be accessed here.
ICAN ensured that the voices of survivors and non-nuclear-armed states were heard, and coordinated civil society input into the negotiations.
The TPNW centres on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and the unacceptable risk they pose, rather than the perceived strategic benefit for nuclear-armed states. The TPNW can be read and downloaded in its entirety here. It was preceded by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was not comprehensive: whilst the NPT does call on recognised nuclear-armed states to move towards disarmament, it needs the TPNW to complement it by providing the legal tools and time-bound framework for unambiguous and complete abolition.
The Scottish perspective on nuclear disarmament is unique. The UK’s nuclear weapons system and the weapons store are in Scotland, and there are no reliable alternative sites. The Scottish Parliament, the overwhelming majority of MPs representing Scottish constituencies, and the Scottish Government oppose nuclear weapons and want them to be abolished. This creates a constitutional question – if Scotland were to become independent, the UK would have nowhere to deploy their nuclear weapons. An independent Scotland with a government that acceded to the TPNW would have global backing in refusing to host nuclear weapons.
This website hopes to make Scottish issues for nuclear disarmament accessible to everyone. The items on the menu will bring you to different sections in which you can read blog posts, press releases and articles posted in local media (reposted here for your reference), news, and you can browse events on our interactive calendar.