The Second Meeting of States Parties (2MSP) to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons convened at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 27 November to 1 December 2023. It was the second formal gathering of states bound by the TPNW since the treaty entered into force on 22 January 2021, following the inaugural meeting held in Vienna in June 2022.
The meeting was presided over by Mexico, with Ambassador Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramírez serving as President. Delegations from states parties, signatory states, observer states, UN agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and civil society organisations — notably the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) — participated.
Key outputs included:
- A political declaration reaffirming the treaty's prohibitions and condemning all nuclear threats, explicitly responding to threats made in the context of the war in Ukraine.
- A package of decisions advancing work on treaty implementation, including deadlines under Articles 4 (elimination of nuclear weapons) and 6 (victim assistance and environmental remediation).
- Progress reports from informal working groups on victim assistance and environmental remediation, the universalisation of the treaty, and on the complementarity of the TPNW with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
- A scientific advisory group report addressing humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons.
Several NATO member states attended as observers, including Germany, Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands, despite not being parties — a pattern that signalled continued engagement from umbrella states without endorsement. The nuclear-armed states (the P5, India, Pakistan, Israel, and the DPRK) did not attend.
The 2MSP underscored the treaty's growing institutional infrastructure and its proponents' framing of nuclear disarmament as a humanitarian imperative, while critics — including NATO as a bloc — continued to argue the TPNW undermines the NPT regime. Kazakhstan was designated to preside over the Third Meeting of States Parties, scheduled for 2025.
Example
At the TPNW 2MSP in New York in late 2023, Mexico's Ambassador Juan Ramón de la Fuente presided as states parties adopted a political declaration condemning nuclear threats made during the war in Ukraine.
Frequently asked questions
Observer participation included several NATO members such as Germany, Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands, alongside other non-party states, though the nuclear-armed states did not attend.
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