Letters of Request to the Japanese government and governments of all nuclear-armed states demanding assurances that cities are not to be targeted for nuclear attacks, and the abolition of nuclear weapons issued

Letters from the City of Hiroshima demanding
the de-targeting and non-targeting of cities

Mayors for Peace is conducting a 2020 Vision Campaign (Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons) seeking to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. Phase II of this campaign is what we call the Good Faith Challenge. This challenge was issued in July 2006 to mark the 10th anniversary of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion stating, “The threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law.” The primary purpose is to challenge all nations to engage constructively in good-faith negotiations toward nuclear disarmament, as legally obligated according to the ICJ.

The concrete response of cities to this Good Faith Challenge is the Cities Are Not Targets (CANT) project. This project encourages cities to demand of their own government full and active participation in disarmament negotiations and to demand assurances from all nuclear-armed states that no city is targeted for nuclear attack.

In line with this project, on February 22, 2007, the city of Hiroshima, president of Mayors for Peace, sent letters to the Japanese government and to the governments of all nuclear-armed nations demanding the abolition of nuclear weapons and, in the meantime, that cities not be targeted.

We are hereby making our letters available as a reference, and we ask that all members of Mayors for Peace and all cities around the world write your own letters to your national governments and the governments of the nuclear-armed nations reiterating these demands.

Hiroshima sent letters as follows: (Click Countries to see letters(PDF))