What did the international Peace Movement have to do with the negotiation of nuclear non-proliferation treaties?
Well-established peace-oriented organizations were highly active in protesting against nuclear weapons after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. By the time the United Kingdom conducted its first hydrogen bomb test in 1957, nuclear testing was considered a “burning public issue”. The international Peace Movement played an essential role throughout the Cold War in keeping the public informed on issues of disarmament and pressuring governments to negotiate arms control treaties. This movement was instrumental in various attempts to negotiate a comprehensive nuclear test ban. It was particularly active around negotiations of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the 1991 Partial Test Ban Treaty amendment conference, the NPT Review Conferences in 1995 and 2000, and finally the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
