Botswana Ratifies CPPNM Amendment: 14* To Go

An important update on our previous post about the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material: Botswana has officially ratified the amendment!

That means that we need only 14* more nations to ratify the amendment (bringing the ratification number up to 2/3 of signatories), and it will go into full force.

This is an important amendment, because it plugs a huge gap in the original treaty. If the amendment goes into effect, nations will be required by the treaty to take security measures to protect the most dangerous nuclear materials—highly-enriched uranium and plutonium—whenever they’re in civilian hands. Since the original treaty only required security measures when those materials were being transported internationally, this amendment will be a huge step forward in nuclear security if it goes into effect.

But it’s not the total package: for that, our nations’ leaders need to come together on the 5 Priorities at 2016’s Nuclear Security Summit. Tell your leaders that we need them to take serious steps at the 2016 NSS by sharing your support for the #5Priorities on social media.

For now, though, let’s update the CPPNM Big Board:

* The magic number is still 14 because Kyrgyzstan just ratified the treaty—meaning that the number of nations needed to ratify the amendment has increased to 102.