For Immediate Release: December 12, 2025      

Media Contact: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director (202-463-8270 x107)       

(Washington, D.C.)—Since 2007, the independent, nongovernmental Arms Control Association has nominated individuals and institutions that have, in the previous 12 months, advanced effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament solutions and raised awareness of the threats and the human impacts posed by mass casualty weapons.

"In a field that is often focused on grave threats and negative developments, our Arms Control Person(s) of the Year contest aims to highlight several positive initiatives—some at the grassroots level, some on the international scale—designed to advance disarmament, nuclear security, and international peace, security, the protection of civilians in war, and/or the rule of law," noted Daryl G. Kimball, executive director.

"We’ve witnessed tremendous setbacks to international peace and security in 2025. But these nominees and their outstanding efforts during the past year illustrate how many different people can, in a variety of creative and sometimes courageous ways, contribute to a safer world for the generations of today and tomorrow," he added.

This year's nominees are listed below and a link to the online ballot is available at ArmsControl.org/ACPOY/2025.

Voting will take place between Dec. 12, 2025, and Jan. 12, 2026. Follow the discussion on social media using the hashtag #ACPOY2025.

A full list of previous winners is available at ArmsControl.org/ACPOY/previous.

The 2025 nominees are:

• The director, Kathryn Bigelow, and screenwriter, Noah Oppenheim, of the Netflix feature-length film, "A House of Dynamite" for providing millions of viewers a realistic, inside look at the dangerous paradoxes and flaws of the system of nuclear deterrence as it might play out in one of the several potential crises that could erupt in the present day. The film shows how, in a real-world nuclear crisis, the answers are never clear, decisions are all always rushed, and the options are all very, very bad.
• The UN Delegation of Mexico and 5 other co-sponsoring states for successfully introducing and advancing a first-ever United Nations First Committee resolution A/C.1/80L/L.56 on “possible risks of integration of artificial intelligence into command, control and communication systems of nuclear weapons.” It was approved 115-8 with 44 abstentions. The resolution seeks to diminish this risk by encouraging member states to jointly explore the unique dangers created by the integration of AI into nuclear launch systems. It also calls on the nuclear-armed states to take immediate steps to ensure that humans, not machines, exercise ultimate control over the use of nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia were among the handful of "no" votes. Many experts, including former military officials, have warned that the unrestrained integration of AI into nuclear command and control systems could result in the “poisoning” of nuclear decision-making systems by false or corrupted data, leading to hasty or misguided nuclear launch decisions. (See ACT, September 2025.)
• The Nevada State Legislature for its unanimous approval on May 22, 2025, of a bipartisan resolution in support of the U.S. nuclear test moratorium and the CTBT. Amid calls from some in Washington to resume nuclear explosive testing, Assembly Joint Resolution 13 calls on the federal government to maintain a 33-year U.S. test moratorium. Beginning in January 1951, Nevada was the site of 928 of the United States' 1,054 nuclear test explosions. The strong bipartisan support shows that Nevadans across the state, no matter their party consider resumed testing is a threat to the state’s economy and environment, the health of its residents, and national and global security.
• Catholic Cardinals and Bishops from Japan, South Korea, and the United States for their pilgrimage of peace to Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of the two cities in August. The U.S. delegation included Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago; Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C.; Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle; and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The pilgrimage was coordinated by the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons to help encourage many other bishops, religious, dioceses, parishes and organizations to join in work for a more peaceful world without nuclear weapons. In Hiroshima, Cardinal McElroy noted: "Deterrence is not a step on the road to nuclear disarmament, but a morass. That is why the Church could not continue to tolerate an ethic which de facto legitimates possession." See: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/265637/catholic-bishops-to-join-pilgrimage-of-peace-to-japan-on-anniversary-of-atomic-bombings
• Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and more than two dozen other Senators for seeking to enforce the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act by pressing for a vote and for voting for a resolution of disapproval to block offensive arms sales to Israel. Sanders and his colleagues cited longstanding U.S. laws and its own policies, which require suspension or limitation of U.S. arms transfers to states, that fail to allow humanitarian assistance to civilians in conflict or that engage in acts that violate international humanitarian law. Two measures were debated and voted on in July. The first, which would block the sale of tens of thousands of assault rifles, failed 70-27. The second, which would block the sale of $675.7 million of bombs and other materiel to Israel, failed 73-24.
• Twenty-four Japanese high school students serving as "peace messengers" advocating for the abolition of nuclear weapons presented about 110,000 signatures for world peace to the United Nations during their visit to the U.N. headquarters in Geneva in September. As the number of surviving hibakusha diminishes over time, the leadership of young activists in recalling the catastrophic humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons and pressing for nuclear disarmament becomes more important. See: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/09/03/japan/students-signatures-peace-un/
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study group that produced the June 2025 report, "Potential Environmental Effects of Nuclear War." The report found that U.S. government "studies reflecting very large exchanges of tens of thousands of warheads with multi-megaton yields are no longer reflective of current worldwide nuclear stockpiles. In the same vein, scenarios that reflect an informed mix of nuclear weapon employment on both targets within urban areas and military targets outside urban areas, versus only in urban areas, would likely better reflect military strategies and outcomes." In other words, the study found that the Department of Defense, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Strategic Command, and Department of Homeland Security analyze some (but not all) of the consequences of nuclear detonations.

• The government of Oman for declaring the completion of clearance of antipersonnel mines in June 2025. Oman was contaminated by antipersonnel and anti-vehicle landmines as a result of an internal conflict from 1964–1975. In 2015, Oman reported that all of its hazardous areas had been cleared before it joined the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, but that those areas were in the process of being “re-inspected” based on a workplan to clear all mined areas by a treaty-mandated deadline of February 2025. There are currently no confirmed mined areas in Oman. Oman's progress was one of the lone bright spots in the global campaign to ban and eliminate landmines. As the most recent Landmine Monitor Report indicates, cutbacks in U.S. aid for landmine clearance and the withdrawals from the 1997 Landmine Convention by five states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland) have set back efforts.

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  Honorable mention: The “hero” rats of APOPO helping with the urgent task of demining in Cambodia.

December 11, 2025   
By Daryl G. Kimball   
Executive Director, Arms Control Association

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Three decades after the conclusion of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the treaty has near universal support and has established a global norm against nuclear test explosions. The treaty is backed by a robust technical organization, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), that is responsible for the operation and maintenance of a highly sensitive global nuclear test monitoring system to detect and deter violations of the treaty.

The nuclear testing taboo impedes the development of new and more advanced nuclear warhead designs, which helps prevent dangerous nuclear competition and strengthens international security.

But the CTBT and the de facto global nuclear test moratorium cannot be taken for granted. The treaty has not yet entered into force due to the failure of eight key states, including the United States and China, to ratify, and Russia’s decision to “de-ratify” in 2023. Although all 187 signatories are legally bound to respect the central purpose of the treaty, the full benefits of the treaty—including the option to order short-notice on-site inspections to investigate potential violations—cannot be realized until it enters into force.

To keep the door to nuclear testing closed, responsible states need to rejuvenate efforts achieve entry into force of the treaty and actively resist any move to resume nuclear testing by any state.

SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS 

• The CTBT has been a central goal of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) states-parties since the NPT was opened for signature in 1968.
• The 1996 CTBT has brought the era of nuclear testing to an end and established a global norm against any kind of nuclear test explosion.
• The door to nuclear testing remains open as the treaty has not entered into force due to the treaty’s onerous Article XIV provisions, which require ratification by 44 specific states.
• Despite the fact that the United States has signed the CTBT and the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory directors and the National Nuclear Security Administration have determined that nuclear explosive testing is not necessary to maintain the reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the Trump administration has declared that it will not seek Senate advice and consent for U.S. ratification and, in October 2025, Trump suggested that he would order the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing “on an equal basis.”
• Pending CTBT entry into force, the P5 should engage in technical talks to develop confidence building measures to resolve real or potential concerns about very low-yield, supercritical nuclear test detonations at former nuclear test sites.   
• NPT states parties should approve stronger language in support of the global moratorium on nuclear testing and the CTBT, and the P5 should issue their own joint declaration in support of the global moratorium on nuclear testing and the CTBT ahead of the 2026 NPT Review Conference.