Tilman Ruff
Tilman Ruff AO is immediate past Co-President and a board member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Nobel Peace Prize 1985); and co-founder and founding international and Australian Chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, the first to an entity born in Australia. He is Hon Principal Fellow in the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, and a member of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Scientific Network.
Tilman's recent articles
2 May 2025
No, it is not time for Australia to acquire its own nuclear weapons
Clive Hamilton’s proposal that Australia should consider acquiring nuclear weapons relies on several flawed assumptions. The biggest of these is the myth that nuclear weapons make us — or anybody — safer.
13 November 2024
Two paramount human-made existential threats: Nuclear weapons and our climate
I don't see a pandemic finishing us off, and climate change itself would (to quote Keating) 'do us slowly'. The one sure path to extinction is nuclear war. - Professor Peter Doherty AC, Nobel Laureate, communication to the author, 9 Sep 2024.
11 March 2023
Ocean discharge the worst plan for contaminated Fukushima waste water
As soon as within a month or two, Japan could begin dumping into the Pacific Ocean 1.3 million tons of treated but still radioactively contaminated wastewater from the stricken Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant.
25 January 2023
90 seconds to midnight: what the Doomsday Clock means in 2023
We are now at the most dangerous moment in history. We face multiple existential crises that are not under control, but growing more acute, while failures of leadership become more damning. We have no time to lose.
17 August 2022
Ice age conditions after even "limited" nuclear war would starve billions
An important new study published in Nature Food on 15 August by Lili Xia and Alan Robock of Rutgers University together with colleagues around the globe shows just how dangerous even a limited nuclear war in one part of the world would be.
26 June 2022
A new era as Australia joins historic UN nuclear ban meeting
This week in Vienna, Australia joined a landmark gathering of eighty-three governments to further implement and develop the treaty banning nuclear weapons.
20 February 2022
The Ukraine crisis could trigger a nuclear catastrophe
There are two potential nuclear dimensions to a war in Ukraine, which could create a massive humanitarian disaster and have profound global implications.
2 May 2021
Joining the nuclear weapons ban treaty has never been more urgent
Its official the first meeting of states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will be held on 12-14 Jan 2022 in Vienna.
7 October 2020
No-one hypoxic or hospitalised with COVID-19 should have the power to launch nuclear weapons
President Trumps failure to delegate authority during his illness is a danger to the world.
8 June 2020
Australia must stem our major military allys rush to nuclear weapon free-for-all?
The danger of nuclear war is growing. A new arms race is ramping up, and hard-won treaties reigning in nuclear weapons are being torn up the Iran nuclear deal, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, now the Open Skies Treaty and a US threat to resume nuclear test explosions, writes Tilman Ruff.