Price for buffet lunch is $15 (includes complimentary parking in the hotel garage).

If you plan to eat, please RSVP This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday, January 11 at noon.

 If you choose not to eat, a charge of $7 will cover parking and event arrangements.

The formal meeting begins at 11:55 a.m.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force on January 22, 2021. It is a crucial component of international humanitarian law.

The very first resolution by the General Assembly of the nascent United Nations (UN), adopted in January 1946, called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, within months of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Yet — whereas other horrendous weapons of mass destruction, like mustard gas, were already banned by the Geneva Conventions after WWI and Napalm got added relatively soon after the Vietnam war — rejection of nuclear armament has been progressing at a lethargic pace.

In 2017, 122 nations voted to adopt the TPNW. In October 2020, Honduras became the 50^th state to ratify the Treaty, allowing it to become effective 90 days later.

Neither the United States nor any other nuclear-armed state — nor those states that are formally protected under nuclear “umbrellas” — have adopted or even seriously engaged in the TPNW. The United States organized a NATO-nations boycott of Treaty negotiations at the UN.

Nevertheless, the TPNW continues to grow in global popularity, with more than 90 signatory nations and more than 70 ratifying nations.

The presentation will discuss some of the unique features of the Treaty, including

• the focus on the humanitarian impacts of the nuclear threat
• the positive obligations the treaty places on party states
• the working groups developing the protocols of the Treaty.

These working groups have expanded the roster of Treaty working groups to include NGO representatives, academics, and technical experts in addition to the usual representatives of states party to a treaty.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can support the TPNW with resolutions and statements sent to elected officials and the media.

City and local governments by the thousands around the globe have adopted resolutions pressuring states and officials to sign the Treaty.

Ralph Hutchison is Administrative Coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA). He has served on state and federal advisory boards dealing with health and environmental impacts from nuclear weapons production and has participated in presentations about the US nuclear weapons complex at the United Nations (including in 2017, when the TPNW was being negotiated) and in briefings to Congressional staff.

He has served as president of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and on the Coordinating Council of the Nuclear Ban Treaty Collaborative. He has participated in nonviolent direct action/civil resistance actions in the US and, most recently (2019), at the Büchel Air Base in Büchel, Germany, where US B-61 nuclear weapons are deployed.

For more information on TSK and its meetings, please email TSK secretary, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call him at 865-679-9854.