The Moral Courage to Disarm: A Faith Perspective on the 2026 NPT Review Conference

By Rev. Masamichi Kamiya, Senior Advisor for Religions for Peace Asia/Asian Conference of Religions for Peace (ACRP)

After a month of discussions (April 27 to May 22, 2026), the Eleventh Review Conference (RevCon) of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), concluded without adopting a final consensus document, highlighting ongoing divisions among nuclear-armed and non-nuclear-armed states.

It was not for lack of effort — several draft texts of an outcome document proposed by the President of the RevCon were fully examined. The President did attempt in distancing the letters of the proposed texts from the complexities of international politics and in maintaining a delicate balance of claims both of nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. At the very end of the Conference, however, the President made a painstaking decision not to present the draft final outcome document to the RevCon for adoption by consensus.

Rev. Masamichi Kamiya, Senior Advisor for Religions for Peace Asia/Asian Conference of Religions for Peace (ACRP), who delivered a statement to the delegates, offers his assessment.

The very first plenary session of the 2026 RevCon, on the morning of April 27, cast a dark cloud over the entire proceedings. The U.S. delegation, joined by a couple of like-minded states, objected to the election of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a Vice-President. Ultimately, the opposed delegations were unable to block the election. But the mood was set. Such an adversarial scene among the NPT states parties illustrated how the complexity of international politics would affect negatively the course of discussions during the RevCon.

The first week of the conference was devoted to General Debate, during which about 160 states parties, political groups and international organizations spoke. The many and diverse arguments presented during the General Debate could be categorized into an essential confrontation between two distinct paradigms: nuclear weapons as a necessary evil versus nuclear weapons as an absolute evil.

On the morning of Friday May 1st, the final day of General Debate, the NGO Session convened, with 32 representatives of NGOs/civil society organizations – including the Religions for Peace movement – delivering their oral statements.

In the three minutes accorded me, I spoke directly and emphatically: “Nuclear weapons remain – silent, powerful and ever present – a danger to human survival…. The possession of nuclear weapons, and the policies that sustain them, are in fact in direct contradiction to the moral foundations of human dignity.”

“Humanity must end the arms race before the arms race ends humanity”

I urged the states parties to NPT to redouble their efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons: “…the path to total elimination of nuclear weapons is complex and requires sustained steps, with trust at its center.” I also called on the states parties to take steps to end their reliance on nuclear weapons as a security doctrine; enhance transparency and communication to avoid accidents; and pursue policies that would result in the reduction of nuclear risks.

Finally, I expressed grave concern about the efforts to undermine multilateralism, globally based rule of law and international humanitarian law, while stressing the importance of strengthening frameworks that create more resilience to the multilateral processes. In concluding, I implored the states parties to find the moral courage to eliminate nuclear arms: “The international community has the capacity and responsibility to reverse the current trends and to build a future grounded in peace, justice, and shared security….Humanity must end the arms race before the arms race ends humanity.”

This elegant last line is, I must concede, not mine. It came from the oral presentation made by Reverend Nikkyo Niwano, Founder of Rissho Kosei-kai at the First Special Session of the UN General Assembly devoted to Disarmament held at the UN Headquarters in New York in 1978. Rev. Niwano then served as an Honorary President for the World Conference on Religions and Peace (WCRP; what is today Religions for Peace)

The inclusion of Founder Niwano’s message symbolized the fundamental importance of efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons to the Religions for Peace movement. Indeed, the movement grew out of religious leaders’ global initiatives for the elimination of nuclear weapons from the organization’s inception. The current leadership of Religions for Peace carries that tradition – the genuine inspiration of the founding members of the Movement.

In the RevCon’s General Debate and Main Committee sessions, states parties navigated intense negotiations covering a wide range of issues, including the humanitarian impacts, security doctrines of nuclear weapons, modernization of arsenals, risk reduction, nuclear sharing, and emerging technologies like AI.

A central point of contention was the relationship between the NPT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Opponents of the TPNW firmly argued against referencing it in the outcome documents, claiming it is incompatible with the NPT. Conversely, a large number of states asserted that the two treaties complement and strengthen one another. They framed the TPNW as an indispensable legal framework that reinforces the disarmament regime and pushes nuclear-armed states to meet their Article VI obligations. They further argued that reliance on nuclear weapons inherently increases global insecurity.

In the final week of the RevCon, NPT states parties discussed the President’s several revised draft texts interactively; as mentioned at the outset of this essay, they regrettably could not reach a consensus.

It is crucial to emphasize that the adoption of a final document is not the sole metric of the RevCon’s success. Several other substantive achievements should be recognized as positive outcomes:
• First, discussions regarding the Joint Statement on the Legacy of Nuclear Weapons successfully urged states parties to revisit past agreements and decisions reached at the 1995, 2000, and 2010 RevCons.
• Second, awareness of the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences of any nuclear weapon use became more deeply embedded within the RevCon framework.
• Third, numerous states parties to both the NPT and the TPNW raised evidence-based doubts regarding the credibility of nuclear deterrence policies, including extended deterrence.
• Fourth, Kazakhstan and the Pacific Islands Forum states successfully advanced critical arguments for victim assistance and environmental remediation—principles rooted in Article 6 of the TPNW. Notably, to preserve consensus, the RevCon President carefully rephrased “victims” as “affected peoples and communities,” and “remediation” as addressing “[environmental] impacts.”
• Fifth, testimonies from communities affected by nuclear use and testing successfully reinforced the necessity of public education and awareness-raising across all disarmament and non-proliferation tracks.

These developments demonstrate that the conference yielded significant progress and filled in for so-called the failure of the adoption of a final outcome document.

As the 2026 RevCon concluded, states parties agreed to hold the next RevCon in New York in 2031 . Despite the failure to reach a formal consensus, this year’s RevCon will hopefully pave the way “to achieve at the earliest possible date the cessation of the nuclear arms race and to undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear disarmament,” as articulated in the NPT Preamble. As the draft outcome documents proposed by the President rightly affirmed, a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

Ultimately, humanity must end the arms race before the arms race ends humanity—a warning underscored by Religions for Peace during the NGO session. Moving forward, global religious communities will undoubtedly continue to champion all efforts to eliminate the nuclear threat, both now and for generations to come.