December 10 is UN Human Rights Day, commemorating the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This landmark document enshrines the inalienable rights that everyone is entitled to as a human being – regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
December 10 is also the day that the Nobel Peace Committee presents the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki is receiving the Peace Prize for demonstrating, through witness testimony, that nuclear weapons must never be used again – and for their efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
UNFOLD ZERO commemorates Human Rights Day by:
- Commending Nihon Hidankyo for being selected for the Nobel Peace Prize;
- Calling for global respect of human rights through full adherence to the core international human rights treaties. This includes the human right to peace and the obligations under human rights law to prevent nuclear war and achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world.
Right to Life without the Threat of Nuclear Weapons
UNFOLD ZERO joins Abolition 2000 in a letter commending Hidankyo “for their tireless determination over decades to lead the world away from the nuclear abyss” and which highlights the affirmation by the UN Human Rights Committee in General Comment No. 36 (2018) that “The threat or use of …. nuclear weapons, which are indiscriminate in effect and are of a nature to cause destruction of human life on a catastrophic scale is incompatible with respect for the right to life and may amount to a crime under international law.”
We welcome the statement Right to life without Threat of Nuclear Weapons, by Kazakhstan and 39 cosponsoring countries, which highlights the UN Human Human Rights Committee General Comment 36, and calls on all States to “restrengthen the nuclear taboo, foster dialogue and confidence-building measures and achieve nuclear disarmament with urgency and determination in line with the collective commitments outlined in the very first United Nations General Assembly resolution as well as obligations under Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and other relevant treaties.”
The statement was submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2023, following advocacy and events on this issue in Geneva by UNFOLD ZERO member organizations, in cooperation with Kazakhstan and other like-minded states.