We achieved a more democratic world free of nuclear weapons

A comprehensive treaty to abolish nuclear weapons in 2020 was the driver for a deep transformation in international affairs, opening up opportunities for broadening civil society participation in sustainable security, democracy and human rights worldwide.  By 2010, people had begun to grasp the relationship between nuclear possession, proliferation and heavily militarised, secretive states, recognising the security threats not only from China, Russia, Pakistan and North Korea - the 'usual suspects' - but also India, Israel, Britain, France and the United States, major arms producers and sellers with dysfunctional democracies.  South Asia's hairsbreadth avoidance of nuclear war in 2013 - the 21st century's 'Cuban Missile Crisis' - shocked a new generation into recognising the need to eliminate nuclear weapons.

The leaders of change were global civil society and progressive non-nuclear governments, who challenged the voodoo dependencies of nuclear deterrence doctrines and mounted global campaigns to delegitimise and abolish nuclear weapons. Britain's decision to renounce Trident in 2014 helped launch negotiations. Criminalising the use of these inhumane weapons of terror started a multilateral process that created the space to develop alternative human and environmental security, reshaping international relations and priorities.  This in turn fostered much more open democracies.