UN on Nuclear Disarmament and the Ban Treaty: An Interview with Izumi Nakamitsu

• Main Author: Fumihiko Yoshida
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2018-01-01
• Series: Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament
• Subjects: Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW); nuclear disarmament; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); Conference on Disarmament (CD); North Korea; verification
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2018.1436385

Izumi Nakamitsu of Japan is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs. She assumed her position on 1 May 2017 and has provided support to the negotiation process of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was opened for signature on 20 September 2017. Previously, she served as an assistant administrator for crisis response at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), a special adviser for the Secretary-General on the follow-up to the summit on large movements of refugees and migrants, and the director of the Asia and the Middle East Division of the United Nations Peacekeeping Department. In her UN career, she principally dealt with issues related to international peace and security from various perspectives. Now, as the United Nations disarmament chief, she emphasized the following in a speech in Nagasaki: “Due to constant advances in military capabilities and in the nature of armed conflict, inaction on nuclear disarmament cannot be equated with maintaining the status quo. Inaction on disarmament will lead to a world that is more insecure and less stable.” In this interview, she expressed her perspectives on the TPNW as well as future visions and challenges on global disarmament, including nuclear disarmament. The following text is an excerpt from the interview, which was conducted at the Nagasaki University with Fumihiko Yoshida and has been edited for this journal.