Preamble

We, the 59 participants of the 6th Hiroshima Junior International Forum, held from August 17th to 20th 2021, collaborated together online from 14 countries around the world. Our aim was to learn about and discuss the abolition of nuclear weapons as well as peacebuilding. Throughout this forum, we were inspired by each other and came up with many ideas.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) came into force in January of this year. This will be an integral and essential step towards the abolition of nuclear weapons. However, the division between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states has yet to be overcome. In addition people around the world continue to be displaced by prolonged civil wars, terrorist attacks as well as natural disasters. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose further challenges for the population of the world.

Under such circumstances, we are acutely aware of the importance of the need for the younger generation to act upon what we have learned here. Furthermore, we are convinced of the need to deepen our understanding of the challenges facing us and the current efforts being undertaken to meet those challenges. Having strong support from the Hiroshima community, we, the youth of today, participated in this forum as an important step for achieving such goals. Spending four days together, we learned from experts in this field, shared our knowledge and gained inspiration from each other as well as listened to different perspectives and viewpoints from all over the world.

In this Hiroshima Declaration, we have compiled the results and fruits of our learning and discussion. The Hiroshima Declaration is a proposal to local and national government leaders, business leaders around the world and the rest of society, as well as an action plan for us, the participants.

 

<Challenges and Solutions for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons>

Toward nuclear weapons abolition, we notice a lack of knowledge. Of course, we know that nuclear weapons are dangerous and they are lethally harmful to people, but it seems that we don’t know enough about nuclear weapons, and how it harms the environment and people for years to come.

Toward nuclear weapons abolition, we recognize little progress in nuclear disarmament. Now, in 2021, there still are 9 countries that have nuclear weapons.

Toward nuclear weapons abolition, we think there is some insecurity of losing nuclear weapons. Even though we know that nuclear weapons can bring forward the fall of mankind, many countries seems they don’t want to disclaim nuclear weapons as it is their safety net of defense.

For this challenge, we suggest the “Do not strike first” strategy, which scales down the problems of unwillingness of nuclear disarmament and insecurity of losing nuclear weapons from this discussion. Governments must promise not to be the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances. This will reduce the risk of misjudgments during a crisis and limit the possibility of small non-nuclear conflicts escalating into nuclear conflicts. In the event of a conflict crossing the threshold and a nuclear war breaks out, the government will face scrutiny from the international public.

For this challenge, we recommend having international agreements. Many governments around the world own nuclear weapons. Reducing the chance of nuclear struggle would require home coverage adjustments inside all international locations, in addition to cooperation and established agreements among them.

 

<Our Role for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons>

We, the young people, commit to organizing global events to inform people about why we need to abolish nuclear weapons. For example, we can organize a history call on how much damage nuclear weapons can do. In many places around the world, they don’t have peace education like the ones in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, leading to some people not having enough knowledge about the problems nuclear weapons can cause. So, by doing these kinds of events, we’ll be able to spread information and raise awareness.

We, the future generation, commit to making or recommending anime and comics that talk about war and nuclear weapons. Watching anime or reading a comic would be an easy and convenient way for young generations to learn about the awfulness of nuclear weapons. Some already existing anime we recommend are Hotaru-No-Haka (Grave of Fireflies) and Hadashi-No-Gen (Barefoot Gen).

We, the youth of today, commit to sharing our opinions and spreading awareness on this matter on social media. There are many social media sites in the world, and many young people from all over the world use them. In order to abolish nuclear weapons in the future, younger generations need to understand why we need to do so. By using social media, many people from younger generations will look at our opinions and will have a better understanding of them.

 

<The Role of Hiroshima for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons>

We believe that Hiroshima can provide support and safety to its neighboring countries as well as try to increase communication and understanding with different nations. By helping out nations and increasing communication and collaboration, Hiroshima can build a supportive and peaceful mindset amongst its neighboring and collaborative nations therefore taking a step further in the process of a peaceful co-existence between countries.

We believe that Hiroshima should encourage people to open up about the damage caused to Hiroshima in World War Ⅱ to people all over the world to increase awareness about the importance of cooperation and peace.

We expect Hiroshima to collaborate with multinational companies and organizations around the world to include peace studies in primary and secondary education around the world. Since Hiroshima is one of the two places attacked with an atomic bomb, it is one of the best and most influential bodies to carry this out. By using methods such as drama assignments, research papers and visual learning, students will be encouraged and motivated to understand the magnitude of this bombing and would be more receptive to learning about it. By making peace studies an active part of education, our future generations will finally understand its importance and what they can do to achieve it.

 

<Challenges and Solutions for Peacebuilding>

Towards peacebuilding, we notice that some people find it difficult to accept others, opposing views and perspectives towards certain issues and matters.

Towards peacebuilding, we recognize that there are people who are unwilling to voluntarily participate in international forums and discussions aimed at interacting with people of different nationalities and peacebuilding between nations.

Towards peacebuilding, we recognize that some parties or groups may be opposed to the idea of creating peace and collaborating with other groups or nations, therefore increasing the risk of violence and rebellion.

For this challenge, we suggest providing a place for people to communicate and bond with others from different backgrounds. A good example would be this forum. By exchanging opinions with each other, we’ll be able to understand that there are many viewpoints toward a single problem.

For this challenge, we also recommend nations and committees to create conditions that promote economic communication. As well as creating conditions for people from different countries, so we can solve the problem of employment and discrimination.

For this challenge, we suggest making more international schools around the world. In international schools, we are able to communicate with students from various backgrounds on a regular basis, so we’ll be able to learn many different perspectives without voluntarily participating in an international discussion event.

For this challenge, we recommend increasing support and collaboration with other nations in terms of trade, military and other resources to increase trust as well as encouraging peaceful and positive mindsets towards each other.

 

<Our Role for Peacebuilding>

We, the young people, commit to doing a campaign that lets us learn about other cultures and thinking. From this, we would be able to work together to establish peace and learn more about various societies, people’s social backgrounds and their views.

We, the future generation, commit to learning about what we have done wrong in the past. By knowing our past mistakes, we’ll be able to learn from them, and have a better understanding of what we need to do in order to build a peaceful world.

We, the youth of today, commit to having opportunities to exchange ideas with individuals around the world, so we can understand others’ perspectives, instead of defending ourselves. To stop discrimination and the fighting between different groups of people, it is necessary for everyone to look at a problem from various angles.

 

<The Role of Hiroshima for Peacebuilding>

We think Hiroshima can collaborate with other cities internationally, in order to make people perceive that Hiroshima will be a place of peace, and make people aware of the cruelty of war.

We believe that Hiroshima could treat foreign students and workers in the same way as the people in Hiroshima, because discrimination is known as keystone of collapse of peace. Hiroshima will be a city of peace, and acts toward peace will make people think of Hiroshima as a symbol of peace for the future.

We expect Hiroshima to encourage artists to make some creative works about global problems (ex. anime, comic books, novels, etc.) for young people to understand that there are many other global problems that still don’t have resolutions. Young people are very important, because they are the key for world peace.

We expect Hiroshima to encourage building more international schools because their peace education will be more effective when students learn about it with other students from other countries.

 

Closing

We participants are now highly aware that specialized knowledge is fundamental for us to understand the challenges that we face and to be able to propose effective solutions. We have also reaffirmed that it is important to mutually respect each other while discussing issues and deriving solutions. While we recognized the importance of outreach, we also grew to realize the strategic relevance that we should spread our message by using the appropriate tools and methods.

We know that our responsibilities do not end with the announcement of the Hiroshima Declaration. We know we need to put the action plan presented here into practice. When we interact with people to share our suggestions, we know we need to collaborate with like-minded people, but we also need to have dialogues with people who hold different perspectives and opinions to seek better solutions for the whole of society. Through such efforts, we believe that we can achieve nuclear abolition, peacebuilding, and the resolution for other fundamentally vital issues.

Now all of us on earth face many challenges and difficulties. It is time for us to take decisive and concrete action. We have been denying ourselves peace for far too long.　Understanding the limits of our power but the importance of our responsibilities, we hereby make this declaration and stake our determination to achieve it.

 

August 20, 2021