Time required: 30 minutes
The leaders of the P5 nations – the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China – will meet in Paris from 29 to 30 June 2011 to discuss nuclear security. Together they possess more than 20,000 nuclear weapons, capable of destroying all life on earth many times over. We must send a loud and clear message to them: a treaty to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons is urgently needed.
- Email President Barack Obama (United States)
- Email President Dmitry Medvedev (Russia)
- Email Prime Minister David Cameron (United Kingdom)
- Email President Nicolas Sarkozy (France)
- Email President Hu Jintao (China)
Sample letter
Dear President/Prime Minister,
I am writing in relation to the P5 nuclear security meeting to be held in Paris from 29 to 30 June. This is an opportunity for you and the other participants to make meaningful progress towards fulfilling your promise “to achieve the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” made at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference last year. Your government rightly expressed “deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons”.
As the leader of a nation with nuclear weapons, you have a special responsibility to lead efforts towards a nuclear-weapon-free world. The complete elimination of these immoral, illegal and inhuman devices is the only guarantee against their future use. I encourage you to join other governments in commencing negotiations on a comprehensive treaty banning all nuclear weapons – a nuclear weapons convention. This should be pursued as a matter of urgency.
The abolition of nuclear weapons is a duty you owe not only to your own citizens, but to all citizens of this planet. It is a duty you owe not only to present generations, but to all succeeding generations. You must do everything in your power now to address this fundamental threat to our future.
Yours sincerely,
