On 28 June 2018, several Pugwash members, including the President Sergio Duarte, were invited to participate at an event hosted by the US State Department to commemorate 50 years since the conclusion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In his reflections on a long career engaged on the NPT, Amb. Duarte noted that,
Between 1966 and 1968 I was privileged to participate from the very beginning in the discussions about the drafting of the Treaty at the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC) and in the work of 22nd Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations when the NPT was adopted. My recollections are still quite vivid today, fifty-two years after I first took up my post as a young advisor to the Brazilian delegation at the ENDC.
Statement of Amb. Duarte at NPT turns 50
The Pugwash Geneva Office Director Sergey Batsanov and Pugwash Council Member Rolf Ekéus both spoke on the panel “Negotiating the NPT: Getting to a Treaty,” also featuring Assistant Secretary Christopher Ford and Sir Malcolm Rifkind. In his remarks on the significance of the NPT, Amb. Ekéus concluded that,
Now fifty years after the NPT Depository Conference it is time to start to think together, identify what is possible and enter into a period of constructive and creative dialogue to preserve the NPT, a Treaty so vital for the wellbeing and existence of humanity.
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs 