International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

This chapter explores how ICAN—the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)—developed into a large and internationally influential non-state actor (NSA). It shows that ICAN was successful in it its endeavor to promote the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons because international developments such as the end of the Cold War, and, most importantly, because keys states turned toward approaching nuclear disarmament as a humanitarian issue prepared the way. ICAN’s decision to abandon campaigning for a Nuclear Weapons Convention was in all likelihood sparked by this humanitarian turn and was a necessary step to be able to exert influence on international diplomacy. The subsequent conclusion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and ICAN’s role in it is historically significant and is the result of a close cooperation between NSAs and states united in this quest. This suggests, in turn, that the key state actors involved turned toward ICAN and other NSAs as an epistemic community in seeking an alternative way toward nuclear disarmament.