Assessing ICAN’s Global Nuclear Disarmament Campaign
ICAN’s rise from Australian initiative to Nobel-laureate network shows how civil society turned a anti-nuclear norm into law amid growing global tensions.
The review examines the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) as a global advocacy network that helped deliver the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It traces how an initiative launched by Australian physicians in 2006 became a coalition of more than 700 partners, using tools like the Parliamentary Pledge and Cities Appeal to embed a new legal and humanitarian norm against nuclear weapons.
At the same time, the text asks how effective and sustainable this model is in a harsher security environment marked by renewed great-power rivalry, rising nuclear spending and alliance politics such as AUKUS. By analysing ICAN’s governance, resourcing and strategic outcomes, with a focus on the Australian debate over treaty ratification, the review shows what civil-society disarmament can realistically achieve—and where its limits now lie.
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