Fifteen thousand, eight hundred nuclear weapons spread across 14 nations. One thousand, eight hundred ready to be launched within minutes of a warning. This is not the cold war, but the present reality – the daily existential threat with which we have learned to live.

This podcast describes what has become known as the “humanitarian initiative”: an effort by governments, the Red Cross and civil society organizations to re-awaken the global public to this unparallelled danger, and to establish a treaty that outlaws nuclear weapons once and for all.

Part 1 of 2, produced for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Image: ICAN campaigners gather in Nayarit, Mexico, for the Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons during February 2014.