Methodology

In this website, ICAN offers a summary of all nuclear testing sites in the world in terms of general available information, humanitarian impacts of testing, activism for nuclear justice, the history of compensation/medical aid and the history of environmental remediation. This does not intend to be a completely exhaustive account by any means, but is a serious attempt to offer a comparative global analysis of all these factors especially in relation to Article 6 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Two particular impacts of nuclear weapons were outside the scope of this website. This website does not attempt to comprehensively document the global transboundary impacts of radioactive fallout from nuclear testing, where more research is needed. Nor does it document the devastating impacts of nuclear weapons beyond nuclear use and testing, which are documented elsewhere and addressed briefly in our FAQ.

We examined a variety of academic sources for this research. For context and region specific information, the disciplines of politics and history were particularly useful. We also examined medical, health and epidemiological studies, environmental and archeological studies, and government records and statements. Analysis of more recent news articles to update the current literature on nuclear justice in terms of compensation, medical aid and environmental remediation were also very useful.

It is important to note the limitations on knowing the full humanitarian impacts of nuclear tests across the globe. This is because much of the information especially military, medical and political archives, has been withheld, destroyed or limited by nuclear weapons states governments.

While this website may be a starting point for educating the public and gathering resources for researchers about the humanitarian and environmental impacts of nuclear testing, additional research will be needed, particularly to implement the TPNW’s provisions on victim assistance and environmental remediation.

ICAN would like to thank Talei Luscia Mangioni for her dedication to this project and excellent research and writing to make it a reality. ICAN would also like to thank the dozens of individuals from the campaign and with regional expertise who reviewed and provided feedback to parts or all of the website content. Finally, ICAN would like to thank Arjun Makhijani and Tilman Ruff for authoring several of the website posts, which include their bylines. ICAN would like to thank the Canton for Geneva for their support of this project.