Disarmament Insight

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Beckett & Nunn: It?s okay to use the ?D? word again
2007-06-26 03:40:00
Friday it was the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons expert meeting in Geneva, Monday it?s the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference in Washington D.C. It?s a jet-set life, and I have the jetlag to prove it (cue: yawn, hair swish. Eat your heart out Paris Hilton).In disarmament and non-proliferation terms, the U.S. scene is a bit of a fish bowl. Viewed from the outside certain things in there can seem distorted, and from the inside the outside world is definitely distorted. So it?s useful from time to time to dunk one?s self into it to try to get a sense of what?s really going on, hence Carnegie.The last Carnegie Conference I attended was, I think, in 2002. At that time the U.S. was still reeling from the September 11 attacks and there was some uncertainty as to which direction the Bush Administration would go in arms control terms.A lot has changed in the intervening five years, but some things remain the same. The Carnegie Conference itself remains ? unsurprisingly ? over...
More About: Word , Nunn

Cluster Munitions: "A change of heart, or of tactic?"
2007-06-22 17:16:00
That was the title of an article on the website of 'The Economist' yesterday about manoeuvring by countries over emerging responses to the humanitarian problems cluster munitions pose. Its particular focus was on an announcement by the United States early this week, something we'd already reported on in the Disarmament Insight blog (see previous posts).At lunchtime today, the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) wound up its work, having agreed on a Procedural Report to send to the Convention's Meeting of States Parties in November.On cluster munitions, the GGE's recommendation was as follows:"Recognising the serious humanitarian concerns associated with the use of cluster munitions and having engaged in a substantive discussions on the application and implementation of existing humanitarian law to specific munitions that may cause explosive remnants of war, with particular focus on cluster munitions, including the factors ...
More About: Change , Heart , Cluster , Chang , Chan

Cluster munitions: CCW update
2007-06-21 11:10:00
This week's Group of Governmental Expert (GGE) meeting of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) continues. Not an exciting header for a posting, I know. But then so far it hasn't been a terribly eventful meeting - especially for those of us who heard many of the presentations being delivered there two months ago in Montreux at the International Committee of the Red Cross expert meeting on cluster munitions.This doesn't mean the GGE hasn't been without interest. Earlier this week I suggested that it might reveal indications about the intent of various players on how or whether to move ahead on addressing the humanitarian problems cluster munitions pose in the CCW. This is something that has potential implications for the so-called "Oslo Process" (see previous posts), which is proceeding in parallel and with many CCW members participating in it.On Monday afternoon, Reuters reported that the U.S. head of delegation to this week's GGE told journalists in Geneva, "...
More About: Update , Cluster , Unit

War and Peace and Primates?and Podcasts
2007-06-19 16:14:00
The Disarmament Insight initiative aims to encourage disarmament practitioners to think differently about human security.In line with that aim, the Disarmament Insight initiative held its second symposium, entitled ?Human Security, ?Human Nature? and Trust-building in Negotiations?, at Château de Bossey near Geneva on 25 May 2007.To stimulate fresh thinking and discussion, we invited some outstanding speakers including Frans de Waal, one of the world?s foremost authorities on ape behaviour and author of books including Chimpanzee Politics (1982) and Peace making Among Prima tes (1990) and Paul Seabright, economist and author of The Company of Strangers: a Natural History of Economic Life (2004).As usual, we recorded talks in order to put them up on the website. Today, we have the pleasure to announce the release of Frans de Waal?s presentation: ?War and Peace and Primates?.In his talk, Frans de Waal explores what multilateral practitioners can learn from our closest relatives in the a...
More About: Podcasts , Casts

Cluster munitions: "I feel a disturbance in the Force ... "
2007-06-18 10:52:00
This week, experts from States Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) - sometimes known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention - will meet in Geneva.The Group of Government Experts, or GGE as it's usually known, was scheduled last November, at the CCW's Review Conference. That meeting decided:"To convene, as a matter of urgency, an intersessional meeting of governmental experts:To consider further the application and implementation of existing international humanitarian law to specific munitions that may cause explosive remnants of war, with particular focus on cluster munitions, including the factors affecting their reliability and their technical and design characteristics, with a view to minimizing the humanitarian impact of these munitions."This may all sound a bit humdrum. But while it won't make any decisions (that's the job of a one-week Meeting of States Parties in November), this week's GGE meeting will be interesting for several reasons. For in...
More About: Force , Cluster , Feel , Banc , The Force

Putting ourselves in the shoes of our enemies
2007-06-15 08:57:00
Academics, it might be argued, have the luxury of thinking outside the box in a way that isn?t open to diplomats and policy-makers. Instead, the latter have to apply worst-case thinking because there are no guarantees about the current and future intentions of potential adversaries. But ?playing it safe? in this way ignores the possibility that others might be arming out of fear and not malevolence. And if both sides are arming out of fear and mistrust, the result could be a vicious circle of power and security competition no one wanted.The fundamental problem, as the British historian Herbert Butterfield pointed out over half a century ago, is that diplomats ?may vividly feel the terrible fear that [they] have of the other party, but [they] cannot enter into the [others] counter-fear, or even understand why [they] should be particularly nervous?. He added that it?s ?never possible for you to realise or remember properly that since he cannot see the inside of your mind, he can never...
More About: Shoes , Enemies , Putting , Shoe

In memory of Clive Pearson
2007-06-12 15:54:00
In 1997, negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva on a Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty had recently been completed. Internationally there were widespread hopes that further negotiations would soon commence on fissile materials, and then further steps toward nuclear disarmament as part of the post-Cold War peace dividend. The CD just needed to settle a couple of niggles concerning its work programme first.Into this environment arrived New Zealand's first Disarmament Ambassador, a flamboyant character named Clive Wallace Pears on. Clive was highly experienced in bilateral and trade diplomacy in various posts around the world, including as New Zealand's first Ambassador to Turkey. But he later said that nothing prepared him for the peculiarities of multilateral arms control negotiations, certainly not the baffling acronyms and the "late-night foul smelling rooms" he would spend so much time in during multilateral disarmament meetings over coming years.A decad...
More About: Memory , Memo , Ears

Following the Leader
2007-06-07 09:17:00
Disarmament Insight note: this is part 2 of a 2 part posting.In my last blog entry I noted that there?s been minimal systematic attention given to subject of individual leadership in the literature on arms control and disarmament processes. However, leadership is an issue that concerns many organizational psychologists, which could have relevance to multilateral arms control and disarmament negotiations. A couple of people have wondered, however, if I?m comparing apples with oranges. After all, leadership of the kind studied by organizational psychologists refers, most often, to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). As Peter C. Flood et al explained the CEO is ?a central member of the top management group? and ?has a disproportionate impact on team characteristics and outcomes?. On the other hand, a chairperson in a multilateral negotiation has limited authority. Moreover, as Daniël Prins noted, ?although the rules of procedure describe what the Chair?s role is, this is always a matte...
More About: Lead , Leader , The Leader

Take Me To Your Leader
2007-06-04 11:57:00
Disarmament Insight note: this is part 1 of a 2 part posting.In his contribution to the DHA project?s third publication, Daniël Prins argued that the chair of a multilateral negotiation should not be seen as ?primarily responsible? for its outcome as ?the task of making progress happen really remains with delegations.? However, he argued that the chairperson can ?have a decisive hand, remaining the master of business.? These observations reminded me of something I read when I first started working on the DHA project in 2004. In his personal account of the Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations Ambassador Bo Kjellen had this to say about Chairman Jean Ripert?s leadership style:I believe that style certainly plays an important role for a chairman ? and Jean Ripert?s style certainly fit the challenges of this negotiation. Most of the time he acted with an almost palpable slowness: but this was on the surface. While explaining technical or legal details pertaining to the ...
More About: Lead , Leader

And now for something completely different
2007-05-31 10:17:00
Regular visitors to this site will have noted that over the last month or so our blogging has focused on two important multilateral meetings - the preparatory meeting of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in Vienna and, more recently, a meeting of the Oslo Process in Lima, Peru, which is working to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions.I would have been in Peru blogging to you personally, dear reader, but for a meeting of our own near Geneva, hosted as part of the work of the Disarmament Insight initiative to help multilateral disarmament practitioners think out of the box.On Friday 25 May, around 25 invited disarmament diplomats at both ambassador and working level, experts from United Nations agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), researchers, civil society representatives and the Disarmament Insight team met for a one-day symposium on the themes of "Human security, 'human nature' and trust building in negotiations".To help us, our sp...
More About: Something , Rent , Thing , Complete , Some

Cluster Munitions: The Road from Lima
2007-05-30 09:37:00
Disarmament Insight note ? although the world's biggest producers of cluster munitions - the United States, Russia and China - are still not among them, delegates from 68 countries met late last week in the Peruvian capital, Lima , to broaden support for a declaration agreed to in Norway in February calling for a ban on cluster bombs by 2008. More than a third joined the process for the first time, having missed the Oslo meeting. The post below from our guest blogger Jamie Stocker reports on the final day of the Lima Conference and offers some concluding thoughts.Many predicted issues about how to define key terms for an international humanitarian instrument on cluster munitions to be the most contentious for the Lima Conference. With these rescheduled from Friday morning to Thursday (see previous posts) and now out of the way, the final day of the Lima Conference was more relaxed in tone, with transparency, compliance and procedural issues scheduled for talks before the closing cer...
More About: Lust , Munition , Road , Cluster

Lima: Defining cluster munitions and destroying stockpiles
2007-05-27 11:30:00
Disarmament Insight note ? although the world's biggest producers of the munitions - the United States, Russia and China - are still not among them, delegates from 68 countries met late last week in the Peruvian capital, Lima , to broaden support for a declaration agreed to in Norway in February calling for a ban on cluster bombs by 2008. More than a third joined the process for the first time, having missed the Oslo meeting. The post below from our guest blogger Jamie Stocker reports on the second day of this meeting: reporting on the Lima Conference?s final day will follow soon.The second day of the three-day Lima Conference began with talks about storage and stockpile destruction of cluster munitions. Though the majority of delegates expressed support for the destruction of banned weapons as soon as possible, others thought it necessary to allow more time, as well as renewal periods for states ?unable? to destroy their stockpiles within the set deadlines. Why the controversy ove...
More About: Lust , Munition , Cluster , Piles

Lima: Schedule Switcheroo
2007-05-24 15:31:00
The Lima Conference on cluster munitions got off to a solid start this morning with a presentation by Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) representative Branislav Kaperanovic, a Serbian former clearance worker and cluster munition victim who expressed his hope for broadening support for the Oslo Process. Representatives of two countries affected by cluster munitions, Lebanon and Cambodia, then took the podium in succession. Neither are producers or users of cluster munitions, yet both are among the most heavily affected countries in the world. All of these speakers sounded notes of urgency about the need to deal with the effects of cluster munitions at the international level, knowing firsthand their effects.Peru, the Conference chair introduced the programme of work for the three-day meeting, which will revolve around thematic discussions. But springs began popping out of the sofa when France proposed that discussion of ?general obligations, scope of application and definitions?, whi...
More About: Schedule , Hero , Witch

Civil Society Forum Sets the Tone for the Lima Conference
2007-05-23 09:16:00
I'm Jamie Stocker and, over the next few days, I?ll be posting updates on the progress of the international conference I?m attending in Lima , Peru, on cluster munitions, which starts today and finishes on Friday. This conference follows the Oslo Conference held in February (see previous posts) and seeks to both broaden support for its goals and deepen discussions on ?cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians?.Yesterday, the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) hosted a Regional Civil Society Forum in Lima on ?Taking Action On Cluster Munitions?, which I attended as an observer. This forum had several goals, including trying to set the tone for the Lima conference of states, attracting media attention (including from what I have been told is a very interested Peruvian media), countering arguments against efforts to address through regulation or prohibition the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions, as well as outlining the CMC?s ?expectations? on what it wants to s...
More About: Sets

Drawing a circle around cluster munitions
2007-05-22 10:59:00
Last Friday, in our last Disarmament Insight post, Patrick Mc Carthy noted the launch of a report by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Handicap International (HI) entitled ?Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munition s on People and Communities?. It follows Handicap International?s preliminary report about the socio-economic effects of cluster munitions, ?Fatal Footprint: The Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions,? released in early November 2006.To briefly recap, ?Fatal Footprint? identified 11,044 casualties (3,830 killed, 5,581 injured) directly related to cluster munition use in 23 countries and territories. 98% of these casualties were reportedly civilians. With 91% of such casualties occurring in countries with incomplete or zero data collection, it?s also highly likely that many casualties go unrecorded, HI noted.Authorities in only three of the 23 countries and territories in HI?s report collected data on casualties while in conflict. Moreover, many vic...
More About: Drawing , Lima , Lust

Facing the facts on cluster munitions
2007-05-18 21:05:00
People who live and work in areas where cluster munitions have been used are only too familiar with the horrific humanitarian impact of this weapons system, both at the time of use and for long after the bombs have stopped falling. NGOs and UN bodies have been documenting this impact for years, in greater and greater disturbing detail. But on Wednesday (May 16), the NGO Handicap International sketched the most complete picture yet of the impact that cluster munitions have on the lives, limbs and livelihoods of the people unfortunate enough to live in their midst. Their report makes for sobering reading. Its key findings include:-- The available data shows that cluster munitions have nearly always been used in or near civilian populated areas against unknown or unspecified targets-- 400 million people currently live among unexploded cluster sub-munitions-- 98 percent of cluster sub-munition casualties are civilians, killed and injured while returning home in the aftermath of conf...
More About: Facts , Lima , Lust , Munition , Cluster

Cluster munitions: do not adjust your set?
2007-05-15 11:34:00
For the last couple of weeks, blog postings on this site have focused on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with help from our guest blogger, Patricia Lewis.A very different meeting is to take place in Lima , Peru, next week about addressing the hazards of cluster munitions for civilians as part of the ?Oslo Process?. It follows a groundbreaking conference of governments, as well as international organizations and civil society in Oslo, Norway, in February.The Oslo Declaration that emerged commits 46 governments to completing an international treaty by the end of 2008 to ?prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.? (A link to the text of the Oslo Declaration is below. See my blog posting from 24 April for more background.)More in coming postings about the Oslo Process. In the meantime, what does explosive submunition contamination actually look like in the field? We might imagine, for instance, th...
More About: Lebanon , Lust , Munition , Cluster

NPT: Vienna Meeting Showdown
2007-05-14 09:28:00
Friday was the day of the rushed endgame for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)?s troubled two-week first preparatory meeting in Vienna . Delays caused by deadlock over agreeing the meeting?s agenda during its first week (see previous postings) were felt more keenly on its final day than any other day since the agenda?s adoption.The substantive discussion, focusing on compliance and the right to withdraw, took place in the morning with a good set of substantive papers and some genuinely interactive debate. But until this debate had actually occurred, the meeting Chairman?s summary could not take it into account. Thus getting the nine-page ? typo-free ? factual summary out by 14h30 was truly a feat of efficiency on the part of the Chairman?s team and the UN secretariat.However, this of course meant that delegations had very little time to read the Chair?s summary and come to agreement on whether it could be annexed to the report of the PrepCom. So there we were at 17h45 (wit...
More About: Down , Meeting

?Happy Birthday Mr President?
2007-05-10 10:04:00
Things are in full swing at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) preparatory meeting in Vienna, and the atmosphere has changed completely. Interventions are constructive and chock full of ideas, information and proposals for ways forward. It may be only a temporary spurt, but this boat has all its sails up and a spinnaker at full wind. By Friday we may be back in the storm and heading for the doldrums as the delegations grapple with how to finalise the report, but for now everyone is enjoying the steady, sunny breeze. Both on its own behalf and as part of the reinvigorated New Agenda Coalition (NAC), South Africa has often taken the helm ? witness their save-the-day proposal that resulted in the ?asterisked agenda? (see previous postings for details). Today, along with two excellent papers, South African Ambassador Abdul Minty announced to the room that today was the Chairman?s birthday.Well, after that of course everybody ? and I mean everybody ? had to congratulate Ambassad...
More About: President , Happy , Birthday , Birth , Side

Can global warming be a trigger for conflict?
2007-05-03 09:07:00
On 17 April, for the first time ever, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) debated the relationship between ?Energy, Security and Climate?, based on a concept paper put forward by the United Kingdom.In introducing these themes into the Security Council, the UK reportedly faced opposition from China, Russia, the United States and some developing countries via the Group of 77. These states apparently objected on grounds that global warming isn?t a matter of international peace and security. Some accused the Security Council of ?ever-increasing encroachment? on the role and responsibility of other UN organs.These concerns have been heard before in other contexts whenever the UNSC has shifted its gaze (think terrorism). It still leaves the big question: is global warming likely to increase the probability of war?Yes, is what a growing chorus of experts thinks. For instance, the vice-chairman of the UN?s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Prof. Munasinghe, said with regard...
More About: Global Warming , Global , Conflict , Ming , Armin

How do you teach a Canadian to be rational?
2007-04-30 17:37:00
Actually, this blog posting's title isn?t the first line of a joke (apologies to any Canadian s out there already reaching for their poison pens). Rather, it?s a reference to an interesting lecture delivered by Thomas C. Schelling, a recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and transmitted on Ontario TV (OTV)?s ?Big Ideas? program.Schelling is less a man than an institution in the domain of rational choice theory. And, unlike a lot of theorists, he?s had extensive experience over his long life in many fields including government, industry and in making government policy. He?s also written many books, but the one that?s perhaps influenced me the most is ?Micromotives and Macrobehavior?, which I?d recommend as background to anyone interested in understanding obstacles to making individual and collective decisions.?Micromotives and Macrobehaviour? can be involved in places, so an easier way to become familiar with rational choice theory is to listen to Schelling's TVO audio ta...
More About: Dian , Rational , Teac , Adia

Addressing the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions
2007-04-24 22:37:00
Last week I went to the Eden Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland, to attend a Meeting of Experts organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to evaluate military, technical, legal and humanitarian aspects of the use of cluster munitions.What is a cluster munition, and what?s the problem? While there?s no universally accepted definition, it?s generally accepted that a cluster munition is a container or dispenser from which explosive submunitions (also called bomblets) are scattered. These submunitions are the dangerous parts of a cluster munition because they explode on impact or after time-delay and cause damage through blast and fragmentation ? cumulatively over a wide area.International concern about the humanitarian effects of cluster munitions has grown, especially following their use in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq, Kosovo and, most recently, in the Lebanon conflict in summer 2006, both in terms of how responsibly these weapons are targeted (experience has...
More About: Aria , Sing , Humanitarian , Lust , Munition

Getting a Grip on Arms Transfers
2007-04-18 16:57:00
Recently, and within the space of a couple of weeks, I travelled to Japan and to Canada to participate in conferences devoted to finding ways to prevent small arms and light weapons from being transferred into regions, countries and hands where they could be used to commit human rights violations, war crimes or genocide; or to topple a country or region into armed conflict. Although the deliberations took place at opposite ends of the world, the conclusions were remarkably similar - States need to take much more seriously their existing obligations under international law to transfer arms responsibly.Every State, of course, has the right to defend itself. The UN Charter recognises this. For most States, this necessitates acquiring arms, either through production or import. The arms trade is a legitimate activity that allows States to meet their security needs. But when a State turns its weapons against its own people, or in aggression against its neighbours, the suppliers of th...
More About: Transfers , Transfer , Arms , Grip , Trans

What we could learn from the Man of the Woods
2007-04-15 21:40:00
Today, the British Sunday Times reported that the chimpanzee has just been knocked off the top of the "IQ tree". What that tree is, and whether that includes another primate species likely to lay claim to that title - homo sapiens - is unclear (I assume it doesn't). The article said: "ORANG-UTANS have been named as the world?s most intelligent animal in a study that places them above chimpanzees and gorillas, the species traditionally considered closest to humans.The study found that out of 25 species of primate, orang-utans had developed the greatest power to learn and to solve problems.The controversial findings challenge the widespread belief that chimpanzees are the closest to humans in brainpower. They also suggest that the ancestry of orang-utans and humans may be more closely entwined than had been thought."James Lee, a Harvard psychologist quoted by the article as an author of the study making these claims apparently sa...
More About: Hat , Earn , Wood , Learn

Trying to account for mass participation in the Rwandan genocide
2007-04-11 18:17:00
In a period of about 100 days, from 6 April to mid-July 1994, experts have estimated that civilian militias and members of the national army dominated by the Hutu ethnic group killed some 500?000 to 800?000 Tutsi (another group) and moderate Hutu in the African country of Rwanda . While these figures are striking indicators of the most rapidly occurring genocide of the 20th century, also deeply disturbing was the high level of participation in the killing, estimated at between 200?000 and 500?000 people.While the Rwandan genocide will forever remain morally unfathomable, how can we begin to account for such a large-scale level of participation in the killing, in the hope that unambiguous danger signs might be identified to prevent it happening again?In a book published in 2006 (see reference below), Ravi Bhavnani posed the question: did killing Tutsi become the norm in the Hutu ethnic group? Bhavnani argued that the level of participation in the Rwandan genocide can be explained by ...
More About: Participation , Genocide , Anda , Part

Can network theory help track terrorists ? or small arms?
2007-04-03 16:26:00
Al Qaeda is often referred to as an atypical organization without central authority that operates like a swarm. In a 2005 interview, Spanish counterterrorism judge Baltasar Garzón said that, following the loss of key leaders during the first year of the U.S.-led global war on terrorism, Al Qaeda convened a strategic summit in northern Iran in November 2002, at which the group?s consultative council decided that it could no longer operate as a hierarchy, but instead would have to become a decentralized network.Can network theory help us destabilize or even neutralize terrorist groups?Well, it seems to be possible. In a recent article in The Boston Globe (see reference below), I read that the Pentagon asked a team of scientists from Boston to look at the potential of ?social network analysis? to study the web of relationships among terrorist organizations, arms scientists, and suppliers in order to help prevent terrorists from acquiring or developing weapons of mass destruction.By r...
More About: Network , Theory , Small , Help , Terrorists

Tune in, turn on and pod out! Disarmament Insight podcasts go live
2007-04-02 15:05:00
The Disarmament Insight initiative held its first workshop with diplomats, NGOs and researchers at the Chateau de Bossey near Geneva on 19 January 2007. The meeting examined what we can learn from recent experience in improving multilateral negotiating practice.Discussions at the workshop were according to the Chatham House Rule. However, wouldn't it be cool, we thought, if we could make the kick-off presentations available on the internet for everyone?Voila! Copying and then pasting the URL into your browser's navigation bar will take you to the Disarmament Insight pod cast site:http://web.mac.com/john_borrieWe hope you enjoy the 3 presentations there:- David Atwood on limits and possibilities for Non-Governmental Organisations in multilateral disarmament diplomacy;- Daniël Prins presenting a diplomat's perspective on engineering progress in multilateral disarmament; and- my own presentation, entitled "Freakomacy: exploring the hidden side of disarmament review conferences".T...
More About: Podcasts , Podcast , Live , Cast

Getting the ball rolling in the Conference on Disarmament
2007-03-28 14:52:00
I first attended a CD meeting in 2003. I was fresh out of university at the time and assumed, rather naively, that I would require a large sheaf of papers to fulfil my note taking duties. I needn?t have bothered, however, as the meeting began 20 minutes after the stated time closed less than 5 minutes later. What a contrast to the first session of the 2007 year, which ended last week. I?ll forgive the delegates (and interns) for looking a little tired. I?d be too if I had to follow such an unforgiving meeting schedule for 10 weeks. It?s encouraging to see the CD finally shaking off its apathy. Prior to 2006, delegations would usually meet on a Thursday morning in a formal plenary meeting with private group consultations held at various times through the week while the CD was in session. Often, delegates? speeches to the Conference lacked focus and direction. Not surprisingly a few capitals began to question the financial and political value of maintaining a full time delegation in G...
More About: Roll , Conference on Disarmament , Disarmament , Ball , Rolling

ORG-anising Human Security
2007-03-26 15:09:00
A couple of weeks ago I participated in a workshop organised by the Oxford Research Group (ORG). The meeting was held in beautiful Oxfordshire countryside at a place called Charnley House Manor, which reminded me a lot of my home town on the other side of the world in New Zealand. The workshop's theme was extremely topical, the vote scheduled that week in the British House of Commons on the United Kingdom's Trident nuclear deterrent, and MPs from each of the three major parties in the Commons joined us at the meeting after the vote to explain their positions. The meeting was also a good opportunity for informal trust building, something that in the DHA project we're always banging on about as important. For my part, it was good to be plonked amongst a largely different crowd to that of the Geneva disarmament community.Mary Midgely was one person at the ORG meeting with insights that impressed me deeply. Mary modestly describes herself as a "free-lance philosopher", but she ...
More About: Security , Human , Sing , Uman

What do gangsters and cowbirds have in common?
2007-03-21 17:31:00
Apparently more than one might think! In a recent Washington Post article, I read about some research done by an avian ecologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey. The researcher, Jeffrey Hoover, noticed that female cowbirds leave their eggs in the nests of other birds. These eggs and, eventually, the hatchlings were taken care of by the ?host? birds. Out of curiosity, the researchers removed some cowbird eggs from the nests of the other birds. Strangely, these nests were subsequently destroyed. Come to find out, the female cowbirds were keeping an eye on the nests where they placed their eggs and, if anything happened to them, they would destroy the nest in retaliation. The ?host? birds raised the ?foreign? hatchlings because this ensured some of their own chicks would survive ? otherwise, ?mobster? cowbirds killed all the chicks. Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University, says that the difference between humans and cowbirds is that the cowbirds aren?t thinking throug...
More About: What , Hat , Gangster , Gang , Birds