The 2022 Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons

The 2022 Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons (HINW22Vienna) took place on 20 June 2022 in the Austria Center Vienna. The conference brought together state representatives, international organisations, the scientific community, survivors and civil society to discuss and explore established and new research on the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons. Building on the Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Oslo (March 2013), Nayarit (February 2014) and Vienna (December 2014), the HINW22Vienna provided an overview of their findings and discussions, and provided additional insight and new research conducted since. The aim was to further advance the common factual and scientific foundation for the global discussion on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Today, more than thirty years after the Cold War, there are still an estimated 13,100 nuclear weapons owned by nine states in the world. This number is set to increase even further, with arsenal increases and modernization programmes and nuclear technology being more readily available to other states as well as non-state actors. The risks associated with nuclear weapons are also increasing. Miscalculations and mistakes, human or technical, can lead to devastating and global short, mid and long-term consequences. Next to their terrible human cost, their impact on the environment, health, development and socio-economic development knows no borders and poses an existential danger to the entire world. Austria organised this conference in the hope of further engaging with the substantive arguments underlying the humanitarian impact and risks of nuclear weapons