The first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons was signed by more than 120 countries at a UN meeting on Saturday. Elayne Whyte Gomez, president of the UN Conference announced the results of the ‘historic vote’ to a loud applause as 122 nations were in favour of the treaty.

However, the UN meeting was boycotted by all nuclear-armed nations. The UN had been trying to negotiate this legally binding treaty for quite some time. Whyte Gomez said that they have managed to sow the first seeds of a world free of nuclear weapons.

She said that ever since atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, the world has been waiting for such a legal norm.

The nine countries including US, Britain and France that are believed to possess nuclear power gave the UN meeting a miss. They are of the opinion that the treaty disregards the realities of the international security environment.

The US, Britain and France along with other nuclear powers are instead determined to strengthen the nearly half-century-old Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty that seeks to prevent the spread of atomic weapons beyond the five original weapons powers - the US, Russia, Britain, France and China.