“Together, we are putting the plan to finally eliminate nuclear weapons into action,” Melissa Parke e-mailed today, March 3, 2025. She was writing to the states that are party to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the TPNW, outlawing nuclear weapons. The treaty resulted from years of work by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), of which Parke is executive director; PeaceWorks is one of many groups that belong to ICAN. Representatives of the now 73 states parties to the TPNW today began their March 3-7 meeting at the UN Headquarters in New York—their third annual meeting to speed progress on eliminating nuclear weapons.
Ann Suellentrop, vice chair of PeaceWorks KC and a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, is attending the UN sessions, along with hundreds of other peace activists and NGO representatives, and Ann forwarded Parke’s email to us. Parke addressed the opening session of the Meeting of States Parties (MSP) this morning, reminding them and other participants of the urgency of banning nuclear weapons. Parke reflected in her email on a gathering yesterday in New York: “As over 350 ICAN friends from around the world met at our incredible Campaigner Forum yesterday, I was reminded once again of the power that lies in our community, and in the collaborations that arise when we have these moments together.”
That note of hope aligns with a huge wooden sculpture at the UN, “Mankind and Hope.” Danish sculptor Henrik Starcke of Copenhagen wrote of his masterpiece, “As the natural growth of the trunk of the tree, used in the sculpture, gives promise of a still greater life, so do I hope to inspire in those present the realization of the great human dream. The bird above the figure, with its wings spread, suggests unlimited flight upward to greater heights. The arms of the figure itself are spread out in the same spirit as the wings of the bird, and I hope this might convey the appeal for the compassion for the weak, the unfortunate, and the oppressed.”
Ann Suellentrop shared with PeaceWorks both the excitement of this international meeting at the UN and the photos.
