Anti-nuclear activists from across the world are to attend a conference in the UK this weekend, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The two-day Global Summit event, at London's City Hall, will include speeches by United Nations Disarmament Affairs Representative, Ambassador Sergio Duarte, peace activist Bianca Jagger and experts from several countries including Pakistan and the United States.
The group was launched on February 17th, 1958 at a public meeting in London in the wake of fears across Europe of nuclear conflict.
CND said world opinion increasingly recognised that nuclear weapons were a global security problem that could only be solved through disarmament.
Kate Hudson, chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: "The Global Summit will bring together delegates from across the globe with the aim of laying the groundwork towards negotiating a global ban on these terrible weapons.
"To some that may be a distant dream, but it was exactly this kind of vision that allowed the ban on landmines to be rapidly negotiated several years ago.
"This weekend, exactly half a century since Bertrand Russell and others addressed our founding meeting, will help bring us closer to the day when governments begin substantive negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention, currently lodged at the UN."
Other events being planned by CND include a protest at the Aldermaston Weapons Establishment on Easter Monday on the fiftieth anniversary of the first peace march to the site.
CND is also helping to organise a national demonstration on March 15th to mark the fifth anniversary of the conflict in Iraq.