International Disarmament Institute News

Education and Research on Global Disarmament Policy

October 24, 2017
by mbolton
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Analysis of ICAN’s Nobel Peace Prize-Winning Advocacy Campaign

In an article for Just Security, Director of the International Disarmament Institute Matthew Bolton and two leaders of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Beatrice Fihn and Elizabeth Minor, examine the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning advocacy effort culminating in the negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

ICAN’s strategy was primarily a discursive one. We aimed to change the way that people talk, think and feel about nuclear weapons, changing their social meaning from symbols of status to outdated, dangerous machines that have repulsive effects.

Representatives of the nuclear-states often marginalize those calling disarmament by dismissing them as deluded. In her protest outside the room where states were negotiating the TPNW, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley chided them, saying “we have to be realistic.” However, ICAN campaigners called attention to the discrepancies between these claims to “realism” and the mystification that surrounded these nuclear weapons.

To change how nuclear weapons were discussed, we brought nuclear weapons into new arenas where humanitarianism, human rights and environmentalism are regular conversations, and to inject these discourses into traditional nuclear forums.

We demanded from states the meaningful participation of survivors, affected communities, medical professionals, faith leaders, humanitarian agencies, activists and academics in the nuclear conversation. We pointed out when forums and panels excluded women, people from the Global South and those who have experienced nuclear weapons’ effects.

To read the full article, click here.

October 16, 2017
by mbolton
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Panel at UN on Addressing Nuclear Harm

Side event on addressing nuclear harm during the UN General Assembly First Committee, chaired by Trinidad and Tobago.

Pace University’s International Disarmament Institute co-hosted a panel at the UN last Thursday on addressing the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons use and testing.

The session was opened by Ambassador Pennelope Beckles of Trinidad and Tobago and chaired by Elizabeth Minor of Article 36.

Bonnie Docherty of the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic provided an overview of the victim assistance, environmental remediation and international cooperation and assistance provisions in the new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Erin Hunt of Mines Acton Canada offered insights on lessons learned for victim assistance from implementing such provisions in the landmine and cluster munition ban treaties.

Matthew Bolton, director of Pace University’s International Disarmament Institute provided a summary of his new report “Humanitarian and Environmental Action to Address Nuclear Harm.” He particularly urged on states to draw on lessons learned from implementing the clearance and demining provisions in other humanitarian disarmament treaties.

The event was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung New York Office.

October 16, 2017
by mbolton
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The Humanitarian Impact of Drones

Pace University’s International Disarmament Institute launched a new report, co-edited by Article 36 and Reaching Critical Will, on the humanitarian impact of armed drones last Friday, in a side event during the UN General Assembly’s First Committee deliberations. With contributions from academics, legal analysts, and survivors of armed drones, this report aims to refocus the debate about drones on the harm caused to people by these weapons as specific technologies of violence. It examines the significant challenges raised by drones to international law, human rights, ethics and morality, peace and security, environmental protection, development, transparency, surveillance, privacy, policing, gender equality, and more.

To download the report, click here.

To learn more about the side event, click here.

October 8, 2017
by mbolton
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The Role of the Pace Community in the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Campaign to Ban the Bomb

Pace University students along with their professors Matthew Bolton, PhD, and Emily Welty, PhD, have been working intensely for three years on negotiations of a nuclear weapons ban treaty with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) that on 6 October was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017.

ICAN has led the way in recent years in campaigning for an international treaty to make nuclear weapons illegal. The Nobel Prize adds momentum to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons adopted at the United Nations by more than 120 countries on July 7 of this year, and should help the process of ratification, with 50 more countries needed. The treaty makes nuclear arms illegal and calls for assistance to victims and remediation of environmental damage.

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October 8, 2017
by mbolton
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Humanitarian and Environmental Action to Address Nuclear Harm

The development, production, testing and use of nuclear weapons has had catastrophic humanitarian and ecological consequences on people and environments around the world. ‘Nuclear harm’ – the damage caused by blast, incendiary and radioactive effects of nuclear weapons use, testing and production, as well as by other nuclear technologies – poses threats to the pursuit of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

A new report from Pace University’s International Disarmament Institute explores possibilities for new global humanitarian and environmental action to address nuclear harm.

Due to advocacy by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), recognized by the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) established ‘positive obligations’ on affected states to assist victims of nuclear weapons use and testing and to remediate contaminated environments. To ensure that the burden does not fall unduly on affected states, the TPNW requires all states to engage in international cooperation and assistance to achieve these and the treaty’s other goals. While the TPNW does not explicitly cover all forms of nuclear harm, and the universalization of the treaty may take some time, its implementation offers the opportunity to build a normative framework and institutional architecture for humanitarian and environmental action to address nuclear harm.

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September 6, 2017
by mbolton
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Briefing Paper on Disarmament Education for UN General Assembly First Committee 2017

The International Disarmament Institute has provided an article on the disarmament education policy agenda for this year’s First Committee Briefing Book, which provides guidance to delegates and advocates attended the UN General Assembly’s meetings this coming fall 2017 on disarmament and international security.

The successful negotiation of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has provided new political and legal impetus for disarmament education. The preamble specifically recognises “the importance of peace and disarmament education in all its aspects and of raising awareness of the risks and consequences of nuclear weapons for current and future generations, and committed to the dissemination of the principles and norms” of the TPNW. It also stress the role of UN, “International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, other international and regional organizations, non-governmental organizations, religious leaders, parliamentarians, academics and the hibakusha” as representatives of the “public conscience” in pressing for nuclear disarmament. This framing represents a welcome turn toward a more vigorous approach to disarmament and nonproliferation education.

To read our article, click here.

July 28, 2017
by mbolton
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Guide to the New Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty

The majority of the world’s countries just adopted a new treaty banning nuclear weapons, placing them in the same category of international law as other weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological weapons) or that cause unacceptable harm (landmines and cluster munitions). Despite this being the most significant development in global nuclear politics since the end of the Cold War, discussion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is almost absent from the U.S. news media and often misunderstood in DC policy circles.

The treaty was approved by a vote at the UN on July 7: 122 countries voted in favor, the Netherlands against and Singapore abstained. The treaty will be available for countries to start signing it  on September 20.

In an article for Just Security, director of Pace University’s International Disarmament Institute provides a brief guide to the treaty’s preamble and operative provisions. Click here to read it.

July 28, 2017
by mbolton
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How the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Helped Expose Disarmament’s Weakness on the Environment

In this new report from Pace University’s International Disarmament Institute and the Toxic Remnants of War Project, Doug Weir, explores the implications of the new Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty for the protection of the environment:

The successful adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in July 2017 was a significant step forward for efforts to stigmatise, and ultimately ban, the final weapon of mass destruction not addressed by a specific legal prohibition. Much has, and will continue to be written on the treaty’s potential impact on ossified state-centric debates about nuclear security. The Humanitarian Initiative on Nuclear Weapons intentionally posed a direct challenge to the rarefied world of nuclear experts and think tanks, particularly those captured by, and actively participating in, the prevailing state security discourse. However, beyond the conflict between the state and human security advocates, there was another story playing out, and it was a story that highlighted the fact that disarmament doesn’t really do “the environment” as effectively as it should. Addressing this weakness would strengthen future humanitarian disarmament initiatives.

To read the full report, click here.

Weir is Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies’ Marjan Centre at King’s College London and coordinates the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons and manages the Toxic Remnants of War Project.

July 8, 2017
by mbolton
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Op-Ed: UN nuclear weapons treaty takes most significant step since Cold War

 

Matthew Bolton, director of Pace University’s  International Disarmament Institute, published the following op-ed in The Hill on 7 July 2017 on the new Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.

While U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley condemned the North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile test this week at the U.N. Security Council meeting and threatened military action, a very different conversation was happening elsewhere in the building.

The majority of the world’s countries were negotiating a new treatybanning nuclear weapons, which was adopted today by a vote of 122 in favor and only one vote against and one abstention. It is the most significant development in nuclear politics since the end of the Cold War, placing nuclear weapons in the same category of international law as other weapons of mass destruction or that cause unacceptable harm: chemical and biological weapons, landmines, and cluster munitions.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

June 30, 2017
by mbolton
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Op-Ed: Ensuring Respect for the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty

Matthew Bolton, director of Pace University’s International Disarmament Institute, published the following op-ed in the Nuclear Ban Daily on 29 June 2017 on ensuring respect for theNuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, currently being negotiated at the UN in New York. For more a detailed report on his research regarding positive obligations, including ensuring respect and promoting norms, click here.

A crucial purpose of the ban treaty process is to stigmatize nuclear weapons. To do so, it should undermine the policies and practices in nuclear-armed and nuclear-allied states that entrench the persistence of nuclear arsenals. This includes delegitimizing doctrines of nuclear deterrence and accepting the stationing of nuclear weapons on the territories of non-nuclear weapons states. Prohibitions on military preparations and planning, stationing, and financing of nuclear weapons are key elements in this effort, raising the costs—economic, social, political and diplomatic—of the nuclear weapons complex.

However, stigmatizing nuclear weapons will require more than negative prohibitions. It will also require states to take positive actions that cultivate, generate, and disseminate the norms of the treaty, both domestically and globally.

In this round of negotiations, states and civil society have begun to discuss potential provisions to this effect, including regarding universalization, norm promotion, disarmament education and awareness raising, and fostering a culture of peace. Others have suggested language that would require states to condemn violations of the prohibitions by states not party. Such obligations would help do the discursive work of delegitimizing nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence doctrines.

In building and strengthening this stigmatizing architecture, states should also consider augmenting it with the “respect” tradition in humanitarian law.

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