After Oslo: A Ban on Nuclear Weapons?

A quiet revolution took place in Oslo earlier this month. More than 120 governments, UN agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and civil society gathered to debate the problem of nuclear weapons, not in military and geopolitical terms, as has been done for decades, but through a humanitarian lens. Never before in the 68 years of the atomic age has there been any serious discussion at a governmental level of the catastrophic harm caused by nuclear weapons, nor a concerted push by states to outlaw these weapons completely.