September 26 is United Nations International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear Abolition Day). It was established in 2013 through the adoption of UN General Assembly resolution 68/32 to enhance "public awareness and education about the threat posed to humanity by nuclear weapons and the necessity for their total elimination, in order to mobilize international efforts towards achieving the common goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world."
Yet today, some 15,000 nuclear weapons remain. In contrast with the objectives of UN Agenda 2030, countries possessing such weapons have well-funded, long-term plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals. More than half of the world’s population still lives in countries that either have such weapons or are members of nuclear alliances.
By resolution 71/258, the General Assembly decided to convene in 2017 a United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.
The Conference took place from 27 to 31 March and from 15 June to 7 July in New York. and adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, which is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, with the goal of leading towards their total elimination.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by the Conference by a vote of 122 States in favour (with one vote against and one abstention) at the United Nations on 7 July 2017, and opened for signature by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 20 September 2017. It entered into force on 22 January 2021. To date 86 states have signed it and 56 have ratified it.