MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines was among 122 countries, nearly two-thirds of the United Nations’ membership, that voted to adopt a legally binding treat prohibiting nuclear weapons.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said the treaty will be open for signatures on September 19 and enter into force 90 days after 50 countries have ratified it.
The vote on Friday came after months of talks that were boycotted by the United States, Britain, France and others who instead pledged commitment to a decades-old Non-Proliferation Treaty.
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft and French Ambassador Francois Delattre said in a joint statement that their countries do “not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party” to the treaty.
“Therefore, there will be no change in the legal obligations on our countries with respect to nuclear weapons,” they said.
“A purported ban on nuclear weapons that does not address the security concerns that continue to make nuclear deterrence necessary cannot result in the elimination of a single nuclear weapon and will not enhance any country’s security, nor international peace and security,” they said, citing North Korea.
Pyongyang’s latest missile tests and claims that its newly developed intercontinental ballistic missile can carry a nuclear warhead have alarmed the United States and other countries.
But Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations Teodoro Locsin Jr., in a statement he delivered at the adoption of the treaty, hailed the pact as a step forward “in putting all nuclear weapons firmly on the path of complete, total and irreversible extinction.”
“This treaty is the capstone of the global disarmament architecture. It strengthens the existing network of treaties and agreements already in place by reaffirming their collectively compelling logic of survival. We voted for its adoption because it is the right thing to do,” he said.
The DFA said the treaty “fills the legal gap in the existing disarmament architecture that has already delegitimized chemical and biological weapons but not nuclear weapons, considered the most deadly of all weapons of mass destruction.”
Under the pact, states are prohibited from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, acquiring, possessing or stockpiling nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, as well as from using or threatening to use these.
“The treaty also prescribes pathways to enable nuclear weapon states to accede in the future and pave the way for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons,” the DFA said.
It said the Philippine delegation “actively participated in the negotiations guided by the provision of the Philippine Constitution, which prohibits nuclear weapons in Philippine territory, and by its obligations under the Bangkok Treaty establishing a Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.”
The DFA also acknowledged the strong voice of Philippine civil society in “the nuclear disarmament discourse.”
At the start of the talks in March, the US envoy Haley said dozens of countries were skipping the negotiations because they were committed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970 and is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.
The U.N. General Assembly resolution adopted a resolution in December, 113 in favor to 35 against, with 13 abstentions, to “negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading toward their total elimination” and encouraged all member states to participate.
