The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament is a joint initiative of the Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese governments. It was proposed by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...

 on 9 June 2008, and on 9 July 2008 Rudd and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda

Yasuo Fukuda

was the 91st Prime Minister of Japan, serving from 2007 to 2008. He was previously the longest-serving Chief Cabinet Secretary in Japanese history, serving for three and a half years under Prime Ministers Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi....

 agreed to establish it.

The Commission is co-chaired by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans

Gareth Evans (politician)

Gareth John Evans, AO, QC , is a former Australian politician from 1978 to 1999 representing the Australian Labor Party, serving in a number of ministries including Attorney-General and Foreign Minister from 1983 to 1996 in the Hawke and Keating governments. He was president and chief executive...

 and former Japanese foreign minister Yoriko Kawaguchi

Yoriko Kawaguchi

is a Japanese politician. She was born in Tokyo. She holds a B.A. in international relations from the University of Tokyo, and a master's in economics from Yale University. She was the minister of the environment of Japan from 2000 until 2002 and the foreign minister of Japan from February 2002...

. Key goals for the Commission include undertaking preparatory work for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to...

Review Conference in 2010, including shaping a global consensus in the lead-up to the Review Conference.

The Commission presented its report on 15 December 2009.