The UN General Assembly (UNGA) met on Wednesday to observe and promote the International Day against Nuclear Tests.

 "Today's commemoration takes place in a world overshadowed by conflict, mistrust and the looming shadow of nuclear weapons," said Izumi Nakamitsu, UN Undersecretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, on behalf of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, at the conference.

As trust between states continues to decline and investments in weapons increase, the ban on all nuclear explosive testing is not just a technical or procedural issue, she said. "It is a moral and strategic necessity."

Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organization, stated that 80 years after the first nuclear test and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, not a single nuclear weapon has been used in war around the world.

He added that over the next 50 years, around 2,000 nuclear explosions scarred the planet, averaging "one test every week" during the Cold War.

Since the opening of the 1996 CTBT, "fewer than a dozen tests" have occurred, making the treaty "a triumph for science, for multilateralism, for humanity," said Floyd.

Vivian Okeke, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Liaison Office in New York, stated that since its founding, the agency has worked to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons while making nuclear science and technology available for peaceful uses.

Nuclear technology diagnoses and cures diseases such as cancer, feeds the hungry, protects the environment, and provides clean energy that fuels progress, said Okeke, emphasizing that "it is essential that nuclear technology is used safely and securely."

In December 2009, the 64th session of the UNGA declared August 29 as the International Day against Nuclear Tests, adopting a unanimous resolution that calls for increasing awareness and education "about the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world."