Abstract
In the recent years, we can witness the birth of a number of new initiatives that once again aim to spark the global nuclear disarmament movement. The famous Wall Street Journal op-ed's by the "gang of four" - George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn - suggested that the idea of nuclear disarmament does not belong only to the domain of utopian, idealist hippies, but that it can also be supported in all seriousness by pragmatic Cold War veterans with a realist vision of world affairs.
In addition, the so-called "humanitarian turn" in nuclear disarmament discourse has been embraced by a growing number of like-minded states and NGO's, framing the need for global ban on nuclear weapons through the human security paradigm. Nevertheless, what really brought the disarmament vision back to the forefront of international politics was the fact that the idea of a nuclear weapon-free world was explicitly placed among the top national priorities by the president of the United States, Barack Obama.