China submitted a working paper to the NPT Prep Com entitled Nuclear Risk Reduction in which it called on all nuclear-weapon States to “adopt responsible nuclear strategies including no-first-use of nuclear weapons policies,” and to “issue joint statements on mutual non-first-use of nuclear weapons and negotiate treaties on no first use of nuclear weapons.”

The New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand and South Africa), submitted a working paper to the NPT Prep Com entitled Taking forward nuclear disarmament which “fully supports the calls by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in the context of the New Agenda for Peace, for, inter alia, the nuclear-weapon States to commit to the “no first use” of nuclear weapons as an interim step and to assure States that do not have such weapons that they will not use – or threaten to use – nuclear weapons against them, pending the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons according to clear benchmarks and within an agreed time frame.”

Another like-minded group of 11 countries (Austria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Malta, Mexico, San Marino and Thailand) submitted a working paper entitled Measures to reduce the breadth of risks associated with nuclear weapons and measures to avoid increasing this riskwhich highlights the risks of “nuclear postures that assert the right to use nuclear weapons first (even in response to non-nuclear threats)” and calls for the “adoption, as an interim step on the path to nuclear zero, of no-first-use policies by the nuclear-armed States.”