Category Archives: DISARMAMENT & SECURITY

London: International Conference Against War

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Counterfire

As activists from across Europe and beyond met to oppose war, Jamal Elaheebocus and Lauren Simmonds report on the determination of delegates to build a massive international movement for peace.

Over 3,000 delegates from across Europe gathered in Central Hall, Westminster for the second International Conference Against War on Saturday 20 June. Following the initial conference in Paris last year, this year’s conference organised by the Stop the War Coalition and supported by hundreds of trade unions and campaign groups marks a step forward for the international movement.


Video of Conference (starts at minute 12)

The day before, there was an excited buzz as around 200 delegates from Europe and beyond filed in to the NEU Headquarters at Hamilton House in London, for the pre-conference Action Planning Meeting. There was a short introduction to the meeting from a panel of speakers which included Daniel Kebede, NEU General Secretary, who welcomed us to the venue, and STW’s Lindsey German, who made the important point that the answer to the US imperial project does not lie with European rearmament and that the enemy for us all, is the one at home.

There was plenty of time for the duration of the meeting to hear from a wide range of speakers who had put their slips in for an opportunity to address the meeting. We heard from activists from both Ukraine and Russia, who made the case for solidarity with dissenters in both countries. Students from France and Germany, organising against conscription and Trade Unionists and organisations from multiple counties making the case for welfare not warfare, and mobilising opposition within the labour movement to the reoccurring issues of social cuts in favour of ever increasing military spending.

High on the agenda was of course the condemnation of the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the need for continued solidarity. We also heard from the chair of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Kevin Courtney, who highlighted the escalating crisis happening there as a result of the US blockade and the growing threat of US military intervention. The important issue of the situation in Sudan was also raised, and how it relates to Western imperialism.

It was a day of connection, conversation and vital networking, where people could share the important work and organising they were involved in, and where the anti-war message transcended language barriers. With the groundwork laid, the Anti-War Conference on Saturday was shaping up to be a truly historic occasion.

The main event

The Saturday morning session of the conference at Central Hall Westminster began with an assembly of trade unionists and activists from across Europe discussing the increasing militarism across their countries and how they are responding. Workers from Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Bahrain and more spoke and there was a consistent theme throughout the session: their governments were preparing for war and were doing so by decimating the living standards of working-class people.

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Question related to this article:

How can the peace movement become stronger and more effective?

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However, there were also stories of resistance, of huge protests in solidarity with Palestine, school students in Germany striking against conscription and the Global Sumud Flotilla which has sailed numerous times to break the siege of Gaza and attempted to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid.

Sukana Rhawani, the mother of Filton political prisoner Fatema Zainab Rajwani, who was sentenced as a terrorist by a judge the previous week, spoke movingly about the increasing authoritarianism being unleashed against an effective and powerful Palestine solidarity movement in the UK.

Anti-conscription campaigns

Students and young people met to discuss the launch of a mass campaign against conscription, with German school striker Felix Kreklow Rojas addressing the meeting and relaying his experiences in organising school strikes against conscription in Germany. Students from France, Spain, Britain and the US spoke of their campaigns. There was a consensus that a coordinated international response is needed and that days of action against conscription will be held on 21-22 November.

The first of two main sessions in the impressive main hall discussed the global drive to war. Parliamentarians from across Europe spoke of their governments’ hikes in warfare spending. Numerous British MPs, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, spoke of the need to build opposition to welfare cuts and defence spending regardless of who replaces Keir Starmer as prime minister.
Lower your guns and raise our wages

The rally also heard from trade union leaders, including the BFAWU’s Ian Hodson, UCU’s Jo Grady and Fran Heathcote of PCS. All spoke of the effect of stagnant wages and falling living standards on their members and the need to oppose further declines to fund the ruling class’s wars. Jo Grady, who moved the successful ‘Wages not Weapons’ motion at TUC Congress spoke of the need for trade unions to up their campaigning against hikes in defence spending to reflect the current policy. She also reflected on the fact that this change in policy was a big win for the anti-war movement, considering the previous policy of unconditional support for increases in defence spending.

The highlight of the session was a powerful speech by Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian physician and leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, which received a rapturous reception.

The second session discussed the drive to war in Europe. Among the speakers was La France Insoumise MP Jérôme Legavre, who had an instrumental role in organising the Paris peace conference, and spoke of the LFI’s opposition to Macron’s hikes in defence spending. French delegates, and others called for Macron to resign, chanting ‘Macron démission’. John Rees, national officer of Stop the War, gave a rousing speech calling on the working class of Europe to unite and fight back against our rulers’ class warfare.

The conference spilled out onto the roads outside Central Hall with an atmosphere of excitement and determination. Most importantly, coordinated action was agreed upon meaning that the powerful words spoken in the hall will become action in the autumn. An international day of Palestine protests will be held on 10 October in addition to a day of action in solidarity with the Genoa dockers in October (date to be confirmed), who refused to load arms bound for Israel, and the days of action – 21-22 November – against conscription.

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DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Europe

World Peace Foundation: who is asking what’s next for peace? Part 1

. . DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION . .

An article by Michelle E. Anderson from the World Peace Foundation

This April, WPF launched its newest research program on the future of peace. This two-part essay begins with a preliminary global mapping of contemporary peace-focused work and some of the different approaches and patterns that emerged across contexts. Part two turns to futures-oriented thinking and explores how WPF’s approach seeks to bring these conversations into dialogue.

Across policy, research, and practice, peace is often approached as something to be built, stabilized, or measured. Whether framed through the language of peacebuilding, security, or even strategic foresight, much of this work is concerned with how existing systems can be made more responsive to emerging challenges. Meanwhile, today’s immediate crises– including wars in Iran, Lebanon, Sudan, and Ukraine– alongside the erosion of multilateralism and the limits of liberal peace frameworks, underscore the difficulty of translating existing models for peace into durable outcomes.

Alongside this, a different set of conversations is unfolding across various movements, intellectual traditions, and future-oriented fields of inquiry. Here, the language is less about mitigation and stability and instead about transformation, alternative futures, imagination, and the reorganization of social and political life. Much of this work is deeply grounded in lived realities and ongoing struggles over justice, governance, care, and survival, even as it often remains fragmented across organizations, movements, and institutional settings. These efforts are also not often framed explicitly in terms of peace, despite engaging many of the underlying conditions that shape its possibility.

It is clear that a wide range of people and institutions are grappling with how societies might move toward less violent, more just, and more sustainable futures. However, the disconnect between these conversations, ways of thinking, and practical action raises broader questions not only about how peace is pursued, but about how it is understood and imagined. What does it mean to bring imagination into conversations about the future of peace while remaining grounded in political and practical realities? More fundamentally, who gets to imagine the future of peace, and under what conditions do certain futures become thinkable and actionable?

WPF’s new Future of Peace program emerges from a long lineage of peace studies and movements, from pragmatic and policy-oriented traditions to more critical and speculative lines of thought. We are not the first to ask what peace might look like beyond current frameworks, nor the first to question whether existing models and practices are adequate for the challenges we face. What matters, then, is not simply posing the question again, but considering what it means to ask it in the current moment. What can be learned from past efforts, and where do they fall short in addressing contemporary forms of violence, power, and uncertainty?

Approach & limits

As a first step in developing the program, we conducted an initial landscape mapping to better understand how different actors, including research and policy centers, think tanks, and related organizations, are currently engaging with the concept of the future of peace, whether explicitly or implicitly. First, though, it is important to note that the concept of ‘peace’ itself is not defined or resolved in this essay. Even within peace studies, there is no single agreed-upon meaning, with divergent and sometimes competing understandings. These range from conceptual distinctions such as negative and positive peace, to frameworks such as liberal peace and its critiques, to lenses such as everyday peace, among many others. This essay therefore treats peace as an open and contested term, which will be taken up more directly in future work within the program. This also shapes how work is identified and categorized in the mapping that follows.

This mapping focused in part on identifiable institutions and organizations as entry points, while recognizing that this offers only a partial view of a broader and more diffuse set of practices and ways of engaging these questions, particularly those not organized through formal institutional structures. This included actors who identify with peacebuilding or conflict-related work, those utilizing futures-oriented thinking, as well as those working in adjacent areas who do not use either label but are asking related questions. This initial mapping surfaces a wide range of work across policy, practice, research, and more exploratory or imaginative spaces. It points to a field that is active and evolving, but also uneven in how these conversations connect, or in the underlying assumptions of what ‘peace’ or ‘the future’ entails.

This preliminary mapping is unavoidably partial and shaped by the terms and methods used. These limitations include the use of English-language search terms, and the choices made about which terms to prioritize. For example, in looking just at peace related work, after some testing, we searched for “academic peace institutes” paired with different regional groupings. These choices helped make the landscape more legible, but also shaped what was made visible through this process. As a result, this approach risks overlooking work communicated through different vocabularies, in other languages, outside of formal institutional structures, or without a strong digital footprint. However, while the mapping initially sought to focus on academic and adjacent institutions, many results were for NGOs, think tanks, and practitioner networks, which is in itself revealing, and therefore included below. The regional groupings presented here are also provisional, reflecting just one possible way of describing an uneven landscape based on early patterns that surfaced in these searches.

Even with these limitations, this mapping points to several distinct areas of work that are relevant to the questions at hand. The sections that follow move across three of these. First, we look at actors who explicitly identify with peace or peacebuilding as their primary area of work, and the ways this field is currently structured across contexts. In part 2 of this essay, we turn to forms of futures-oriented thinking, examining how different actors approach the future itself, and what this might reveal about the conditions shaping peace. Finally, we consider efforts to bring these strands into conversation, looking at where questions of peace and the future begin to intersect and what this might suggest for future directions of the field.

The current landscape of peace work

An exploration of peace-focused institutions across the globe suggests important regional variation in how peace is framed, organized, and pursued, though these observations remain preliminary. These differences are not only conceptual, but institutional. That said, the regional distinctions outlined below should be understood as broad tendencies rather than fixed categories, with significant overlap, variation, and exceptions across contexts. While this phase of the mapping effort was not specific to the future of peace but rather peace related institutions more broadly, these initial findings offer insight into where and how more transformative or future-oriented conversations may already be taking shape. The regional groupings presented here are not based on a single predefined framework, but instead reflect patterns that surfaced through the mapping process, as well as an effort to attend to contexts where the organization and institutionalization of peace-related work appeared to differ in meaningful ways. Irrespective of region, explicit conceptual engagement with “peace” was uneven. While some institutions and initiatives treat peace itself as an object of critical inquiry, in many cases it functions more as an assumed or loosely defined outcome of ending or managing conflict.

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Question related to this article:


How can we develop the institutional framework for a culture of peace?

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In North America and Europe, peace-related scholarship is often embedded in dense networks of academic, policy, and practitioner institutions, and tends to focus on governance and institutional responses to conflict. However, these regions are not internally uniform; separating the United States and Canada would likely reveal further variation (particularly in how questions of reconciliation, indigenous sovereignty, and settler colonial histories are incorporated), as would looking more closely at subregions within Europe, given that many of the institutions that surfaced through this mapping are concentrated in the United Kingdom and Nordic countries. Alongside university-based peace and conflict studies centers and academic networks such as the UK’s Oxford Network of Peace Studies, independent Nordic research institutes such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) or the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) are looked to as thought leaders, producing data-driven analysis on conflict, arms transfers, and security. Accordingly, dominant narratives from both North America and Europe reflect an orientation toward analyzing, managing, and responding to conflict through institutional and policy frameworks, with “peace” positioned as an outcome of effective governance and security arrangements.

In Latin America and Africa, institutionalized peace work is more frequently connected to questions of social transformation, inequality, and justice. In both regions, peace is often treated not only as a matter of governance or conflict management, but as part of broader struggles over social and political order. In Latin America, there is a recurring emphasis on peace not simply as the absence of conflict, but as a lived, relational process shaped by social and political transformation. This is reflected in initiatives such as FLACSO Ecuador’s Acción No Violenta program, which situates peace as nonviolence within historically and politically specific contexts, and the CALAS Visions of Peace research program, which explicitly examines the ambiguities and “gray zones” between violence and peace rather than treating transitions as linear or complete. At the same time, institutions such as the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica reflect a more internationally oriented institutionalization of peace studies, connecting peace and conflict education to sustainable development, environmental issues, and human rights.

In Africa, similar themes around justice, inequality, and social transformation are present, though the landscape appears more institutionally networked and practice-oriented than conceptually unified. Considerable regional variation likely exists, including across linguistic, political, and conflict contexts, but the search surfaced a particularly dense ecosystem of university programs, mediation institutes, training centers, and regionally embedded peacebuilding organizations operating within a broadly recognizable peacebuilding sphere.  Organizations such as the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) work across mediation, early warning, governance  and community-based peacebuilding, while institutions such as the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes  (ACCORD) combine conflict analysis, mediation support, policy engagement, and practitioner training through partnerships with regional and continental actors, including the African Union.These efforts reflect a field that includes- and sometimes bridges- institutional, regional, and locally embedded forms of peace practice.

In Oceania, the mapping suggests that there is a mix of globally oriented academic and policy approaches alongside initiatives more explicitly grounded in local and cultural understandings of conflict and coexistence. Academic institutions such as the University of Otago’s National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies  in New Zealand and similar programs at Australian universities tend to align with traditional peace studies approaches, often focusing on governance, security, and policy-relevant analysis, though there is some incorporation of critical and Indigenous-informed perspectives. In contrast, network-based and practitioner-oriented initiatives place greater emphasis on relational, nonviolent, and dialogue-based conflict transformation, and peace is understood through context-specific and relational understandings of social, ecological, and political life. For example, Transcend Oceania  describes its work as “building on local knowledge systems, skills and approaches of Oceania.” While not necessarily framed as a critique of dominant models of peace, these initiatives certainly reflect different assumptions about social order, responsibility, and coexistence, particularly where they draw on Indigenous knowledge systems and locally embedded practices.

In the Middle East, relatively few academic institutions explicitly identifying as peace-focused were identified. Instead, relevant work appears to be more often embedded within NGOs, policy organizations, or broader governance and security agendas.  For example, the Arab Forum for Alternatives  in Lebanon does not claim to do peace work, but hosts regional network building, research, training, and activism with the aim of advancing justice and equality through political transformation. Palestinian professor and peace activist Mohammed Dajani Daoudi points out  that, “Despite the state of crisis that evolved in a violent conflict which the Middle East has been undergoing, not a single university in the Arab region offers a Ph.D. program on peace, moderation, interfaith dialogue, and reconciliation studies to promote a culture of peace, tolerance, and coexistence.” While Professor Daoudi puts forth a compelling argument for why such a program is needed and how it would support critical thinking, dialogue, and innovation toward addressing the complexities of social transformation, the gap may reflect differences in how the field is institutionalized, what is seen as valuable or relevant, or the political conditions under which such work can take place.

Asia presents one of the most internally uneven and institutionally diverse landscapes identified through this mapping, with significant variation across subregions in how peace is framed, institutionalized, and practiced. In some places, these efforts rely on philosophical traditions (e.g., Gandhian, humanistic), while others use governance and security frameworks, and still others can be better characterized by applied peacebuilding ecosystems. In East and Northeast Asia, ‘peace’ is often institutionalized within universities and research centers, such as the Toda Peace Institute in Japan, frequently with an emphasis on topics such as security, diplomacy, and historical reconciliation. In Southeast Asia, mapping surfaced a developed ecosystem of training institutes, regional networks, and hybrid academic-practitioner initiatives centered on  capacity-building for applied peacebuilding. For example, the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute  in the Philippines describes itself as “a resource for peacebuilders: providing skills, conducting research and building solidarity within the Asia-Pacific Region.” In South Asia, by contrast, the landscape appears more fragmented, spanning policy-oriented think tanks, smaller institutes, and advocacy networks focused on security, diplomacy, and cross-border cooperation. Across these contexts, peace is framed through multiple and sometimes competing lenses.

Regional differences are evident not only in how peace is framed, but by the variation in the institutional forms and mandates across these examples. These divergences likely reflect not only political, economic, historical, and cultural contexts, but underlying conditions including funding structures and opportunities, institutional mandates, and political constraints. While these patterns do not explicitly or immediately point us toward who is similarly engaging with the ideas or ‘big rethinking’ efforts underlying the Future of Peace project, they might still suggest where alternative ways of conceptualizing and pursuing peace are already underway.

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DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global

UAB School for a Culture of Peace annual report: highest number of armed conflicts in the world in the past decade

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

A report from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

The UAB School for a Culture of Peace publishes today its annual report—one of the main yearbooks in Spain on conflictivity, human rights and peacebuilding. The report identifies 40 wars currently existing in the world, the highest figure in the past decade, and warns about the increase of international conflicts and humanitarian consequences.

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The world is experiencing a new upsurge in global armed violence. In 2025, 40 active armed conflicts were registered (37 in 2024), the highest number since 2011 and one of the highest since the School for a Culture of Peace (ECP) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona has been producing its annual reports on international conflict. This is one of the main conclusions of the report Alert 2026! Report on conflicts, human rights and peacebuilding, published on 3 June. The report is mainly based on qualitative analysis of studies and information provided by the United Nations, international organisations, research centres, media and NGOs, among others, as well as the experience acquired in field research.

According to the study, there were 40 armed conflicts and 113 scenarios of socio-political tension around the world in 2025. Africa continues to concentrate the highest number of wars (17), followed by Asia and the Pacific (12), and the Middle East (7), while Europe and America register two armed conflicts each.

Rise in international conflicts

The report particularly warns of the increase in international conflicts. In 2025, nine clearly internationalised wars were recorded, the highest number since the ECP uses its current classification methodology. Among the new armed conflicts identified are the confrontation between India and Pakistan, the serious escalation between Thailand and Cambodia, and the war between Israel, the United States and Iran, known in 2025 as the “12-day war” and which was reopened in 2026. The ECP research team warns that this evolution reflects a deterioration in global security and is a reflection of an international system in which many powerful actors do not prioritise prevention, addressing the root causes of disputes and supporting dialogue.

Sudan, Gaza, Haiti and Ukraine: worsening of the humanitarian situation

The report concludes that almost half of the world’s armed conflicts worsened during 2025. Among the most serious cases are the Western Sahel region, Sudan, Haiti, Somalia, Gaza, Myanmar and the war between Russia and Ukraine. The ECP warns of the increase in civilian casualties, the bombing of populated areas, the destruction of infrastructure and the violations of international humanitarian law.

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Question related to this article:

Where in the world are zones of peace?

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Setbacks in women’s rights

Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of UN Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the report warns of a global backsliding in women’s rights. According to the study, 70% of the highest-intensity armed conflicts take place in countries with low or medium-low levels of gender equality. Twenty-three of the 40 armed conflicts that took place in 2025 took place in countries with low or medium-low levels of gender equality, and 16 of the 20 high-intensity armed conflicts in 2025 (80%) took place in countries where the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association had documented legislation or policies that criminalise LGBTIQ+ people.

Moreover, women’s participation in UN-led peace processes continues to decline. The UN verified more than 4,600 cases of conflict-related sexual violence in 2024, a 25% increase over the previous year. A total of 93% of the victims were women and girls.

Over 117 million forcibly displaced people

The report notes that forced displacement remains at historically high levels. In mid-2025, there were 117.3 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, including refugees and internally displaced persons. Although the figure represents a slight decrease from the previous year, partly attributed to the return of people to countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan, the ECP highlights that the overall volume remains extraordinarily high. Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Ukraine and Venezuela account for 65% of the world’s refugee population.

An internationally renowned report

Alert 2026!, which this year reaches its 25th edition, is one of the main yearbooks produced in Spain on conflict, human rights and peacebuilding. The study combines data from the United Nations, international organisations, research centres and specialised fieldwork. The objective of the report is to offer tools for analysis and preventive warnings to political leaders, international organisations, the media and actors involved in the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

UAB School for a Culture of Peace report: Alert 2026! Report on conflicts, human rights and peacebuilding

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(Click here for a Spanish version of this article)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global

36,000 protesters rally in Tokyo against Japanese PM Takaichi’s push to revise constitution

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Xinhua China News

Tens of thousands of Japanese people gathered around the parliament building in Tokyo on Sunday [April 19] to protest attempts of the government of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to revise the country’s pacifist constitution and to call for the protection of Article 9.

About 36,000 people attended the rally, organizers said, the second protest to draw about 30,000 people near the National Diet Building against constitutional revision since April 8.



Frame from You Tube video of an additional protest on May 4

Protesters held placards reading “No to war,” “Do not undermine Article 9” and “Takaichi step down,” calling for the protection of Japan’s pacifist constitution.

“The fact that so many people have gathered here to protest the Takaichi administration’s push for constitutional revision shows that the Japanese people do not want war,” a protester surnamed Hara told Xinhua. It was her fourth time attending such a rally.

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Question related to this article:

How can the peace movement become stronger and more effective?

(Article continued from left column)

Hara accused Takaichi, backed by her ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) supermajority in the lower house, of pressing ahead with constitutional amendment in defiance of public opposition, intending to turn Japan into a country “capable of waging war,” which she said she strongly opposes.

“I hope (the Takaichi government) can listen to the voice of the people,” she added.

Another protester, identified as Takahashi, said Japan had inflicted profound suffering across Asia during wartime and that its pacifist constitution was drafted in reflection on that history. She opposes any move to revise it.

“I have nephews and nieces, and I absolutely do not want them to be sent to war someday,” said Izumi, a first-time participant. “I oppose war. Article 9 must be protected at all costs.”

Another male protester said he feared war and was alarmed by the ruling LDP’s push to revise Article 9. He expressed hope that Takaichi would step down and be replaced by leadership capable of advancing genuine democracy and that Japan would maintain friendly relations with China and countries around the world.

Japan’s Constitution, which took effect in 1947, is often referred to as the pacifist constitution because its Article 9 renounces war as a sovereign right and prohibits Japan from possessing “war potential” such as military forces.

However, both Takaichi and right-wing forces in Japan have long sought to revise Article 9. At an LDP convention on April 12, Takaichi declared that “the time has come” to reform the Constitution, saying that “we would like to hold next year’s convention with a proposal for a constitutional amendment in sight,” signalling a renewed determination that has triggered widespread concern and criticism across Japanese society. 

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DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, East Asia

Pope Leo calls for new ‘cul­ture of peace’

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION .

An article by Nova Kruijning from Jurist

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday urged  the US and Iran to return to peace negotiations amid rising tensions in the ongoing war, calling for a new “culture of peace” to replace the default recourse to violence whenever conflicts arise. The remarks come on the heels of a very public back-and-forth  between the Pope and US President Donald Trump over the war, marked by Trump’s repeated threats of escalation, which the Pope criticized as undermining diplomatic efforts and risking further instability in the region.

En route home from his trip to Africa, Pope Leo emphasized  the need to collectively reject the use of force in international relations and instead rely on consistent, diplomatic mechanisms to resolve international disputes of this scale. Characterizing the current geopolitical situation as “chaotic,” Pope Leo noted the lack of consistency in diplomatic signals and attributed the escalating severity of the situation in the Middle East thereto. “One day Iran says yes, the United States says no, and vice versa,” the pontiff stated. “We don’t know where it will go.”

Question related to this article:

Where in the world can we find good leadership today?

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The tension between Pope Leo XIV and Donald Trump has become an unusually prominent element of the crisis. While disagreements between the Vatican and world leaders are not uncommon, the directness of this exchange particularly stands out. Trump’s emphasis on strength and escalation has contrasted sharply with the Pope’s calls for restraint and dialogue, turning what might have been a quiet disagreement into a public divide. 

Observers note that Pope Leo’s tone marks a deviation from his typically mild, more tempered approach. Rather than offering broad moral guidance, he has taken a firmer stance, openly criticizing rhetoric he views as destabilizing. This suggests a belief that the gravity of the situation – particularly involving Iran and the United States – requires clearer, more urgent intervention to prevent further destabilization. This shift was also pointed out during his recent trip to Africa, where his remarks took on a more urgent and pointed character, taking aim at a “handful of tyrants” and “masters of war” who have “ravaged” the world. 

“The perceived change in tone is due to the escalation of events … which have forced his words to become more explicit,” said the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education. “But the vision was already right there, right beneath the surface.”

The exchange reflects a broader pattern of volatility in the conflict itself, where inconsistent signals and increasingly irrational rhetoric have made (sustained) diplomacy increasingly difficult, if not seemingly impossible. As tensions between the United States and Iran fluctuate, each escalation appears to narrow the leeway for negotiation and increases the chance that even a minor incident or misunderstanding could trigger a wider confrontation to topple an already exceedingly fragile region.

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DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global

Possible Pathways to Nuclear Abolition

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

Special to CPNN from Timmon Wallis

How the world can achieve verifiable, irreversible global nuclear disarmament before it’s too late.

We are at the moment facing a very backwards trend in pretty much everything to do with international relations. The last remaining treaty in nuclear arms control has recently expired. And the response from Trump was, “if it expires, it expires” . . .

Trump is surrounded by people who have a vested interest in keeping the nuclear weapons business going for as long as they can.

So this is where the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) comes in. But what is the use of this treaty if the US and the other nuclear powers have not joined it? In fact, all the countries that are in the TPNW are already in the NPT, where they promised not to develop nuclear weapons. So what is the point of another treaty that just makes that same commitment?

Article 1e of the TPNW bans assisting, encouraging, or inducing anyone, in any way, to engage in any of the activities prohibited to a States Party of the treaty.

Treaties, as you know, are agreements between governments. The governments must not develop, manufacture or stockpile nuclear weapons. But this clause refers to anyone, not just governments. In other words, people, corporations, banks, insurance companies – the parties to the treaty must not assist anyone involved in the development, manufacture or stockpiling of nuclear weapons. And the people and corporations that are involved do not just have to be in or based in that country. The TPNW says “anyone.”

So, theoretically at least, the 74 countries that have so far joined the TPNW are forbidden under this treaty from having anything to do with the corporations that develop, manufacture or stockpile nuclear weapons.

Now here’s the thing. The two dozen major nuclear weapons companies don’t just operate in the US or the UK or France. These are multinational corporations. They have operations all over the world, including in many of the countries that have already joined the TPNW.

They also have offices in other countries, they have contracts and projects, they sell their products and services to those countries. They also have suppliers – a whole supply chain – involving many other countries, to obtain the resources and the parts they need. And crucially, they have investors in those countries.

So far, only Ireland has fully divested its sovereign funds and major banks from the nuclear weapons companies (along with Switzerland, which is not even in the treaty) but others should follow – including countries like Austria, South Africa, New Zealand, Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico… These are not insignificant countries and the impact on these companies could be huge.

Another clause in the TPNW that is crucially important for putting pressure on these companies is Article 5, which obliges all parties to the treaty to adopt national legislation that applies the prohibitions of the treaty to persons, including “legal” persons in the country, and defines legal penalties for violations of those prohibitions. As I pointed out, treaties apply to countries, but by passing laws in each country which make it illegal for anyone in that country to have anything to do with nuclear weapons, the TPNW is once again tightening the noose on these companies and the people who work for them – especially CEOs, members of the board of directors and other high level vice presidents and so on.

In Ireland, once again our test case for this, the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Act was passed in 2019, making it offense, punishable by up to life in prison, for anybody in Ireland having anything to do with nuclear weapons, including assisting anybody else having anything to do with nuclear weapons. So now it’s not just the sovereign fund that belongs to the state and is therefore required to divest from these companies, but also the banks and anybody else with investments in Ireland.

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Question related to this article:
 
Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Clearly if more and more countries take on these responsibilities of the TPNW, the companies will find themselves under more and more pressure from governments as well as from investors, suppliers, customers and even workers working for those companies.

My book, Nuclear Abolition: A Scenariois imagines a scenario where more and more of the states parties to the TPNW are moving on to these next steps, as more countries are also signing and ratifying the treaty.

Currently we have 74 countries who have ratified the TPNW.

We have another 25 countries who have signed the treaty but not yet ratified it. That makes 99 so far, a majority of the 197 countries in the world able to sign international treaties.

We then have another 40 countries who have been consistently voting for the treaty but have not yet signed it themselves.

We have another 12 countries who have been abstaining…
Including, for instance, Switzerland, where campaigners just succeeded in collecting over 100,000 signatures to put it on the ballot; including Australia, whose Prime Minister is personally committed to the TPNW, whose party has voted to join the TPNW, and just won a re-election with a strong mandate.

Then we have at least 20 countries who are under enormous pressure to join the treaty, including countries in NATO that have government ministers committed to joining the treaty, including the former Prime Minister of Iceland, as well as opinion polls showing overwhelming support from the general public…

I already mentioned the ruling party in Australia is committed to signing the TPNW. So is the ruling party in Norway, and the coalition government in Spain. The previous coalition in Germany was also committed to joining the TPNW, although clearly the current government is not.

Who knows what it will take for one of these countries to join the TPNW, and then another, and another and another. Sooner or later, it will happen. I offer some possible scenarios that could lead to this in my book . . .

Sooner or later, we’re either going to get these countries on board for the elimination of nuclear weapons or we’re going to have a nuclear war. I certainly hope it’s the former.

But it’s also not just these European countries that ultimately have to get on board with this. My book then looks at the situation within the US. The peace and anti-nuclear movement in the US is certainly much weaker than it is or has been in Europe. But there are important steps being taken, and I will highlight just a few:

I hope you all heard a few years ago that the city council of New York voted to divest from the nuclear weapons companies? A few other large cities have already done so, including Oakland, CA. Most recently Philadelphia also voted to divest from nuclear weapons.

My own small city of Northampton, MA has not only divested from these companies, but announced that it will not do business with any of these companies. It has notified these companies that they are not eligible to bid for city contracts.

And there is currently legislation pending in the MA state legislature to do both of these things. It is unlikely to pass in this current session, but there is a growing movement in support of this…

Altogether, these steps being taken across the US and around the world may or may not be enough to pressure the nuclear weapons corporations into seeking other ways to make a profit. After all, these corporations don’t exist in order to make nuclear weapons. They exist in order to make a profit for their shareholders.

Once it starts to become unprofitable for them to be involved in the nuclear weapons business, they will move on to other things – as many of them did in the 1980s when faced with divestment, boycotts and public opprobrium. And while there were many factors at play which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, the pressure on nuclear weapons corporations at that time was certainly one of them.

Those corporations, like General Electric and Ford Motor Company, not only pulled out of their involvement with nuclear weapons. They demanded that Congress and the Reagan Administration take steps to restore public confidence in those corporations, by cutting back on the nuclear arms race and signing agreements with the Soviet Union.

Pressure on the corporations “worked” then, and it can work again! And with Trump and Putin at the helm, we can only hope it works before it’s too late.

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DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global

Over 100 International Law Experts Warn: U.S. Strikes on Iran Violate UN Charter and May Be War Crimes

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Just Security

The United States and Israel initiated strikes on Iran over one month ago, on February 28, 2026. The attack was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter. The conduct of the war, and statements of U.S. officials, also raise serious concerns about violations of international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes. We have written the below statement together with over 100 U.S.-based international law experts, to detail our profound concerns about the war. The letter is signed by international law experts across the United States, including senior professors; leaders of prominent international law associations, non-governmental organizations, and legal clinics; former government legal advisors; and military law experts and former Judge Advocates General (JAGs).


Letter of over 100 international law experts on Iran war
 
We, the undersigned U.S.-based international law experts, professors, and practitioners write to express profound concern about serious violations of international law and alarming rhetoric by the United States, Israel, and Iran in the present armed conflict in the Middle East.

Due to our connection to the United States, our focus here is on the conduct of the U.S. government, but we remain concerned about the risk of atrocities across the region including the continuing risks posed by the Iranian government to Iranians through violent crackdowns on dissent, and to civilians across the Middle East through Iran’s ongoing unlawful strikes on civilian infrastructure using explosive weapons in densely populated areas.

One month has passed since the United States and Israel launched strikes across Iran. The initiation of the campaign was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter, and the conduct of United States forces since, as well as statements made by senior government officials, raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes.  

We collectively affirm the importance of equal application of international law to all, including countries that hold themselves out as global leaders. Recent statements from senior U.S. government officials describing the rules governing military engagement as “stupid” and prioritizing “lethality” over “legality” are profoundly alarming and dangerously short-sighted. These claims, particularly in combination with the observable conduct of U.S. forces, are harming the international legal order and the system of international law that we have devoted our lives to promoting. 

The war, which is costing U.S. taxpayers between $1-2 billion each day, is imposing significant harm to civilians in the region, has resulted in the loss of hundreds of civilian lives across the Middle East, and is causing serious environmental  and economic harms.

We write to express our concern about 1) jus ad bellum, or the decision to go to war, 2) jus in bello, or the conduct of hostilities, 3) rhetoric and threats from senior U.S. officials and their allies, which portend further abuses, and 4) the decimation of civilian harm mitigation structures within the U.S. government as a part of U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s “gloves off” approach to warfare. 

1. Jus ad bellum concerns: The strikes launched by the United States and Israel on February 28, 2026 clearly violated the United Nations Charter prohibition on the use of force. Force against another state is only permitted in self-defense against an actual or imminent armed attack or where authorized by the UN Security Council. The Security Council did not authorize the attack. Iran did not attack Israel or the United States. Despite the Trump administration’s varied and sometimes conflicting claims to the contrary, there is no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat that could ground a self-defense claim. Many international law experts have concluded that Israel and the United States’ actions violate the UN Charter, including the President and President-elect of the American Society of International Law, and the President of the American Branch of the International Law Association; UN Secretary-General António Guterres also condemned the attacks as undermining international peace and security.

2. Concerns about violations of international humanitarian law: The laws of armed conflict constrain the conduct of hostilities of all parties to the ongoing conflict. We are concerned that these fundamental rules may have been violated, including in the context of reported strikes on civilians and civilian objects such as political leaders who have no military role, oil and gas infrastructure, including South Pars, and water desalination plants. On March 19, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk condemned strikes on energy infrastructure, noting their “disastrous” impacts for civilians. 

We are seriously concerned about strikes that have hit schools, health facilities, and homes. The Iranian Red Crescent reports that “67,414 civilian sites have been struck, of which 498 are schools and 236 health facilities.” A report by leading civil society organizations found that at least 1,443 Iranian civilians, including 217 children, were killed by U.S. and Israeli forces between February 28 and March 23. 

The strike on Minab primary school is particularly concerning. On February 28, Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, Iran, was struck, resulting in the deaths of at least 175 people, many of them children, according to Iranian officials. Based on easily accessible online information and commercially available satellite imagery, it appears the building had been used as a school for a decade. President Trump denied U.S. responsibility, falsely stating that “It was done by Iran.” However, a preliminary investigation by the Department of Defense reportedly determined that the U.S. conducted the strike, and the targeting had been based on outdated intelligence. The strike likely violates international humanitarian law, and if evidence is found that those responsible were reckless, it could also be a war crime. The strike is among the deadliest single attacks by the U.S. military on civilians in recent decades. 

3. Concerns about rhetoric and threats from senior officials. We are deeply concerned about the dangerous rhetoric government officials have engaged in during the war, including: 

a. Threatened denial of quarter: On March 13, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated “We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” In international law, it is “especially forbidden” to “declare that no quarter will be given,” a prohibition also set out in the Department of Defense’s own law of war manual. Hegseth’s statement likely violates international humanitarian law as well as the U.S. War Crimes statute 18 U.S.C. 2441. Ordering or threatening no quarter is a war crime. 
 
b. Dismissal of rules of engagement and international law: Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s “no quarter” statement followed similarly alarming statements by the Secretary, including on September 25, 2025 and March 2, 2026 that the U.S. does not fight with “stupid rules of engagement.” On January 8, 2026 President Trump had made the disturbing comment that “I don’t need international law.” On March 13, he stated that the U.S. may conduct strikes on Iran “just for fun.”

c. Threats on energy infrastructure: President Trump threatened on March 13, 2026: “I could take out things within the next hour, power plants that create the electricity, that create the water… We could do things that would be so bad they could literally never rebuild as a nation again.” International law protects from attack objects indispensable to the survival of civilians, and the attacks threatened by Trump, if implemented, could entail war crimes. On March 21, President Trump further threatened to “obliterate” power plants in Iran. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, defended power plant attacks the next day, and also said that striking nuclear power plants was not off the table. It is prohibited to attack civilian energy infrastructure. If a power plant has both civilian and military purposes (“dual-use”), it may be considered a military objective where it makes “an effective contribution to military action” and the attack “offers a definite military advantage.” However, any strike must respect the principles of proportionality and precautions in attack. The proportionality principle prohibits attacks expected to cause incidental civilian harm that would be excessive in relation to the military advantage. The civilian harm to be considered includes foreseeable reverberating or indirect harm. In any attack, “all feasible precautions” must be taken to avoid civilian harm. 

Attacks on nuclear power plants, even if they have a military purpose, require particular care because of the high risk of releasing radiation and radioactive material and consequent severe harm to the civilian population. Such a strike could harm the health and safety of millions of civilians.  On March 23, 2026, the ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger expressed her deep concern, noting that “War on essential infrastructure is war on civilians” and described threats to nuclear power plants as “Most alarming.”

4. Concerns about institutional safeguards against further violations: Since the start of the second Trump administration, the Defense Department under Secretary Hegseth has deliberately and systematically weakened the protections meant to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law. This includes removing senior military lawyers without publicly citing misconduct, and replacing the Army, Navy, and Air Force judge advocates general, directly undermining legal oversight of combat operations. It has also abolished “civilian environment teams” and other mechanisms specifically designed to limit harm to civilians during operations. The 2026 National Defense Strategy omits references to civilian protection and international law entirely. These changes are especially concerning in light of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments that rules of engagement interfere with “fighting to win.”  

We are gravely concerned that the conduct and threats outlined here are causing serious harm to civilians in the Middle East, and that they also contribute to escalating the conflict, damaging the environment and the global economy, and that they risk degrading the rule of law and fundamental norms that protect every nation’s civilians. Public statements by senior officials indicate an alarming disrespect for the rules of international humanitarian law accepted by states, and which protect both civilians and members of the armed forces. 
  
We urge U.S. government officials to uphold the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, and human rights law at all times, and to publicly make clear U.S. commitment to and respect for norms of international law. 

We remind all states of their legal obligations not to aid or assist the United States, Israel, or Iran in the commission of internationally wrongful acts, as well as to cooperate to bring to an end through lawful means serious breaches of peremptory norms of general international law (jus cogens) including the prohibition of aggression and the basic rules of international humanitarian law. 

We also urge the U.S. governments’ allies and cooperating partners to take steps to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law, in line with Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions and associated customary international law. The United States has itself acknowledged that states should seek to promote adherence by others to international humanitarian law. The International Committee of the Red Cross 2016 Commentary on the First Geneva Convention of 1949 provides that a state is “in a unique position to influence the behavior” of partner states where the state “participates in the financing, equipping, arming or training of the armed forces of a Party to a conflict, even plans, carries out and debriefs operations jointly with such forces.”  

Signed,*

William J. Aceves

Chief Justice Roger Traynor Professor of Law

California Western School of Law

E. Tendayi Achiume

Professor of Law

Stanford Law School

Rabiat Akande

Wilson H. Elkins Chair and Associate Professor

University of Maryland School of Law

Susan Akram

Clinical Professor of Law

Director, International Human Rights Clinic

Boston University School of Law

Philip Alston

John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law

NYU School of Law

José E. Alvarez

Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law

NYU School of Law

Faculty Director, US-Asia Law Institute

Diane Marie Amann

Visiting Professor, LSE Law School

Special Adviser to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict (2012-2021)

Baher Azmy

Legal Director

Center for Constitutional Rights

Sandra L. Babcock

Clinical Professor of Law

Director, International Human Rights Clinic

Cornell Law School

Aslı Ü. Bâli

Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law

Yale Law School

Carolyn P. Blum

Clinical Professor of Law, Emerita

Berkeley Law, University of California

Christine Bustany

Senior Lecturer in International Law

Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

Charli Carpenter

Professor of Political Science

University of Massachusetts Department of Political Science

Christina M. Cerna

Adjunct Professor of Law (ret.)

Georgetown University Law Centre

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (ret.), OAS

Sandra Coliver

Former Executive Director

Center for Justice and Accountability

Jorge Contesse

Professor of Law

Rutgers Law School

Cody Corliss

Associate Professor of Law

West Virginia University College of Law

Avidan Y. Cover

Professor of Law

Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Rebecca Crootof

Nancy Litchfield Hicks Professor of Law

University of Richmond School of Law

Jamil Dakwar

Director, ACLU Human Rights Program

Adjunct Professor, New York University and Hunter College

Tom Dannenbaum

Professor of Law, Stanford Law School

Frank Stanton Professor of Nuclear Security

Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Frederick T. Davis

Lecturer in Law, Columbia Law School
Principal,
Fred Davis Law Office

Christian M. De Vos

Visiting Assistant Professor

City University of New York School of Law

Laura Dickinson

Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law

The George Washington University Law School

Stephanie Farrior

Professor of Law (ret.)

Eugene R. Fidell

Visiting Lecturer in Law

Senior Research Scholar

Yale Law School

Martin S. Flaherty

Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor

School of Public and International Affairs,
Princeton University

Laurel Fletcher

Chancellor’s Clinical Professor of Law

UC Berkeley, School of Law

Claudia Flores

Clinical Professor of Law

Director, Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic

Faculty Co-Director, Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights

Yale Law School

Idriss Fofana

Assistant Professor of Law

Harvard Law School

Barbara Frey

Director Emerita, Human Rights Program

University of Minnesota

Hannah R. Garry

Clinical Professor of Law

Founding Faculty Director, Donna and Spencer Gilbert Global Justice & Human Rights Center

Founding Director, International Human Rights Clinic

University of Southern California (USC) Gould School of Law

James A. Goldston

Executive Director

Open Society Justice Initiative

Jonathan Hafetz

Professor of Law

Seton Hall Law School

Lisa Hajjar

Professor of Sociology

University of California – Santa Barbara

Rebecca Hamilton

Professor of Law

American University, Washington College of Law

Hurst Hannum

Professor Emeritus of International Law

Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

Tufts University

Oona A. Hathaway

Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law, Yale Law School

Professor, Yale University Department of Political Science

Faculty, Jackson School of Global Affairs, Yale University

Director, Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School

President-elect, American Society of International Law

Adil Haque

Distinguished Professor of Law and Judge Jon O. Newman Scholar

Rutgers Law School

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Question related to this article:
 
How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?

(Continued from left column)

Hadar Harris

Founder and Principal

Rights and Justice Consulting

Lindsay M. Harris

Professor of Law

Director, International Human Rights Clinic

University of San Francisco School of Law

Sarah Harrison

Former Associate General Counsel

Department of Defense

J. Benton Heath

Associate Professor of Law

Temple University School of Law

Paul Hoffman

Director, Defending Democracy Clinic

University of California at Irvine School of Law

Partner, Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman, LLP

David B. Hunter

Professor Emeritus

American University Washington College of Law

Deena R. Hurwitz, Esq.
Founder of the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Virginia

Rebecca Ingber

Professor of Law

Cardozo Law

Co-Director, Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy
Senior Fellow, Reiss Center on Law and Security,
NYU School of Law

Former Counselor, Office of the Legal Advisor, U.S Department of State

Tejal Jesrani

Human Rights Clinical Instructor

Director, TrialWatch Project

Columbia Law School

Brett Jones

Charles E. Scheidt Human Rights Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Dr Ioannis Kalpouzos

Visiting Professor

Harvard Law School

Jeffrey Kahn

Professor of Law

Director, Program on Law and Government

American University Washington College of Law

David Kaye

Clinical Professor of Law

UC Irvine School of Law

UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression (2014 – 2020)

U.S. Member, European Commission for Democracy through Law (“Venice Commission”)

Pardiss Kebriaei

Senior Staff Attorney

Center for Constitutional Rights

Michael J. Kelly

Professor of Law

Senator Allen A. Sekt Endowed Chair in Law

Director, Kaiman Center for International Criminal Justice & Holocaust Studies

Creighton University

Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

Professor of Law

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

John H. Knox

Henry C. Lauerman Professor of International Law

Wake Forest University School of Law

Former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment

Harold Hongju Koh

Sterling Professor of International Law

Yale Law School

Steven Arrigg Koh

R. Gordon Butler Scholar in International Law

Boston University School of Law

Jeremy Konyndyk

President, Refugees International

David A. Koplow

Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law

Georgetown University Law Center

Christopher Kutz

C. William Maxeiner Distinguished Professor of Law

Philosophy and Political Science (by courtesy)

Berkeley Law School, UC Berkeley

Beatrice Lindstrom

Senior Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law

Harvard Law School

Katerina Linos

I. Michael Heyman Professor of Law

Co-Faculty Director, Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law

UC Berkeley, School of Law

Bert Lockwood

Distinguished Service Professor

Director of the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights
University of Cincinnati College of Law

Editor-in-Chief, Human Rights Quarterly

David Luban

Distinguished University Professor

Georgetown University Law Center

Kate Mackintosh

Executive Director, Professor from Practice

UCLA’s The Promise Institute for Human Rights (Europe)

David G. Mandel-Anthony

Faculty Instructor, Binghamton University Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (I-GMAP)

Former Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, U.S. Department of State

Sarah Margon

Founder and Principal, Windsong Advisory

Former Director of US Foreign Policy at Open Society Foundations

Joseph Margulies

Professor of the Practice of Government

Cornell University

Craig Martin

Professor of Law

Co-Director, International and Comparative Law Center

Washburn University School of Law

Elisa Massimino

Visiting Professor of Law
Executive
Director, Human Rights Institute

Georgetown University Law Center

Daniel Maurer

Associate Professor of Law, Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law

Advisor, Center for Military Law & Policy, Texas Tech University School of Law

Board of Directors, National Institute of Military Justice
Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (ret.)

Juan E. Mendez

Professor of International Law (ret.)

Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (2010-2016)

Washington College of Law, American University

Gay J. McDougall

Former Vice Chair and 3-term Member, UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Former UN Special Rapporteur on Minorities (2005-2011)
MacArthur Award Fellow, 1999

Senior Fellow and Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence

Leitner Center for International Law and Justice / Center for Race, Law and Justice

Fordham University School of Law

Margaret E. McGuinness

Professor of Law

Co-Director, Center for International and Comparative Law

St. John’s University School of Law

Chi Adanna Mgbako

Clinical Professor of Law

Director, Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic
Fordham Law School

Zinaida Miller

Professor of Law & International Affairs

Northeastern University

Saira Mohamed

Agnes Roddy Robb Chair in Jurisprudence, Ethics, and Social Responsibility

Professor of Law

UC Berkeley, School of Law

Bridget Moix

General Secretary, Friends Committee on National Legislation

Priyanka Motaparthy

Director, Center for International Human Rights

Clinical Professor

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Karen Musalo

Bank of America Foundation Chair in International Law

Professor & Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies

U.C. Law, San Francisco

Aryeh Neier

President Emeritus, Open Society Foundations

Former Executive Director, Human Rights Watch

Former Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union

Mary Ellen O’Connell

Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law

Concurrent Professor of International Peace Studies

University of Notre Dame

Diane Orentlicher

Professor Emerita

American University Washington College of Law

Arzoo Osanloo

Professor of Anthropology

Co-Director of the Human Rights Initiative

Princeton University

Jessica Peake

Director, International & Comparative Law Program

UCLA School of Law

Stephen J. Rapp

Senior Fellow, Center for National Security Law, Georgetown Law School

Former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice (2009-2015)

Paul Rink

Associate Professor of Law

Seton Hall Law School

Francisco J. Rivera Juaristi

Clinical Professor of Law

Santa Clara Law

Scott Roehm

Adjunct Professor of Law

Georgetown Law School

Dr. Cesare P.R. Romano

Professor of Law

W. Joseph Ford Fellow

Loyola Law School, Los Angeles

Gabor Rona

Professor of Practice

Cardozo Law School

Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita

UC Law San Francisco

Brad R. Roth

Professor of Political Science and Law

Wayne State University

Kenneth Roth

Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

Former Executive Director, Human Rights Watch

Susana SáCouto

Professorial Lecturer-in-Residence

Director, War Crimes Research Office

Director, Summer Law Program in The Hague

American University Washington College of Law

Leila Nadya Sadat

James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law

Washington University School of Law

Director, Crimes Against Humanity Initiative

Chair, International Law Association (American Branch)

Former Special Advisor on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor (2013-2023)

Margaret L. Satterthwaite

Professor of Law
, NYU School of Law

Beth Van Schaack

Former Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, U.S. State Department

Visiting Fellow (Feb. 2026 – June 2026)

European University Institute

Distinguished Fellow

Center for Human Rights & International Justice,
Stanford University

Michael P. Scharf

President of the American Branch of the International Law Association

Joseph C. Hostetler – BakerHostetler Professor of Law

Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Michael N. Schmitt

Professor of International Law, University of Reading

Professor Emeritus, US Naval War College

Former G. Norman Lieber Distinguished Scholar, West Point

Steven M. Schneebaum

Adjunct Professor
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Visiting Professor, Tashkent State University of Law, Uzbekistan

Eric Schwartz

Professor of Public Affairs

Chair, Global Policy

University of Minnesota

Elizabeth Shackelford

Distinguished Lecturer

Dartmouth College

Gregory Shaffer

Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of International Law

Georgetown University Law Center

Dinah Shelton

Manatt/Ahn Professor of Law (Emeritus)
The George Washington University Law School

Rebecca Shoot

Co-Convener, Washington Working Group for the International Criminal Court
Co-Convener, ImPact Coalition on Strengthening International Judicial Institutions

James Silk

Binger Clinical Professor Emeritus of Human Rights

Yale Law School

Matiangai Sirleaf

Nathan Patz Professor of Law

University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health
University of Maryland School of Medicine

David Sloss

John A. and Elizabeth H. Sutro Professor of Law

Santa Clara University School of Law

Stephan Sonnenberg

Associate Professor of Practice

Wesleyan University

Milena Sterio

James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law & LLM Programs Director

Cleveland State University College of Law

Jonathan Tracy

Former Judge Advocate, U.S. Army

Jennifer Trahan

Clinical Professor and Director of the Concentration in International Law and Human Rights

NYU Center for Global Affairs

Convenor, The Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression

Rachel E. VanLandingham

Lieutenant Colonel (USAF) (ret.)
Professor of Law & Associate Dean for Research, Southwestern Law School

President Emerita & Director, National Institute of Military Justice

* Signatories are signing in their individual capacities and affiliations are for identification purposes only.

– – – – – –

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DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America

Speech by the Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations, Ambassador Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, at the commemorative event of the 12th Anniversary of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

Cuba’s Representative Office Abroad

Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Mr. Khaled Khiari,

High-ranking officials un the UN Secretariat,

Distinguished Ambassadors,

Brothers and Sisters of Latin America and the Caribbean,

Dear colleagues,

Twelve years later, we are gathered on a date of profound significance for the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. On 29 January 2014, the Heads of State and Government of CELAC adopted a landmark decision in Havana: to proclaim our region a Zone of Peace.


(click on image to enlarge)

Such a Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace signed by the Heads of State and Government of the region was a major historic event.

The Proclamation materialized the historic wishes of our people and their fighters for independence, those who envisioned and fought for a free and united Great Motherland, which José Martí called “Our America.”

It was an affirmation of dignity, sovereignty, and confidence in genuine regional integration. It was our joint decision to reject war, coercion, or interference aimed at seizing our region. It was our collective commitment to dialogue, cooperation, and mutual respect—in favor of a true culture of peace.

It committed us to settling differences among nations peacefully, through dialogue and negotiation, with absolute respect for international law—and thereby to banish forever the use or threat of force in our region.

It endorsed the renewed commitment of our States to promoting nuclear disarmament as a primary goal, as well as contributing to general and complete disarmament, with a view to strengthening trust across all nations.

It indicated the path for a peaceful living and for cooperation to face up challenges and to jointly solve the problems which affect us all.

With it, we committed ourselves to fulfilling our “obligation not to interfere, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of another State and to observe the principles of national sovereignty, equal rights and the self-determination of peoples”, as well as to respecting the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law.

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(Click here for the article in Spanish.)

Questions related to this article:
 
Latin America, has it taken the lead in the struggle for a culture of peace?

Where in the world can we find good leadership today?

(Continued from left column)

Distinguished colleagues:

The Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace was clear in its defense of the inalienable right of every State to choose its political, economic, social and cultural system, as an essential condition for ensuring the peaceful coexistence of nations.
This historic document urges all member states of the international community to fully respect its principles in their relations with CELAC member states, practice tolerance and live together peacefully as good neighbors. Preserving these precepts is an imperative.

Just over a decade later, the regional and international context has become extremely dangerous and unpredictable. The United States Government is reviving its imperial claims to domination, driving the planet towards anarchy and war‑mongering chaos, posing a constant threat to international stability and security, and displaying utter disregard for multilateralism and international law. In the face of these colossal challenges, we have a historic duty to safeguard, at all costs, the status of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

In just one month, in our region alone, the United States carried out a brutal and unjustified military intervention in Venezuela, kidnapped its constitutional President, Nicolás Maduro Moros, and comrade Cilia Flores and reinforced the aggressive escalation against Cuba by trying to impose an absolute siege on fuel supplies to the country. These irresponsible actions require urgent mobilization by the international community. Today, the fate of our peoples, regional stability and the very identity of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace are at stake.

Reason, International Law and the unwavering will to fulfill and uphold the postulates of the Peace Proclamation are on our side.

In the face of intentions to reinstate the Monroe Doctrine by military force, we reaffirm that Latin America and the Caribbean is neither disputed territory nor anyone’s backyard. Latin America and the Caribbean belong to the peoples from the Rio Bravo to Patagonia, as our Apostle said.

José Martí warned us 135 years ago, and I quote: “The trees must form ranks to keep the giant with seven-league boots from passing! It is the time of mobilization, of marching together, and we must go forward in close ranks, like silver in the veins of the Andes.”

This historic moment needs more unity, even in our diversity. In the face of the differences, challenges and threats that now loom over Latin America and the Caribbean, let us uphold peace. The peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean deserve to live in peace.

Thank you very much.
 
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DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, Latin America

People Across Global South Condemn ‘Imperialist’ US-Israeli War on Iran

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Brett Wilkins from Common Dreams (reprinted according to Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

People, groups, and governments across the
Global South this week condemned the US-Israeli war on Iran, which one prominent international progressive organization slammed as "devoid of any legal justification."

People rally and march in Thiruvananthapuram—the capital of Kerala state in India—on March 2, 2026 to condemn the US-Israeli war on Iran. (Photo by Communist Party of India-Marxist/X)

The attack on Iran sparked large protests in countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, and Turkey, with demonstrators taking to squares and streets to condemn what many called a war of imperialist aggression waged by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.

(Editor’s note: The Guardian lists protests from Pakistan, South Africa, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Chile, Cuba, and many other developing nations.)

In South Africa—which is leading a genocide case against Israel at the >International Court of Justice (ICJ)—labor, leftist, student, and Muslim groups are among those denouncing the war.

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) issued a statement Tuesday proclaiming, "No to war, no to regime change, no to oppression."

"History has taught the global working class a bitter lesson: So-called 'interventions' in the name of democracy have left behind destruction, instability, and suffering for ordinary people, never liberation," SAFTU asserted. "From Iraq to Libya, from Syria to countless other theaters of intervention, it is workers and the poor who pay the highest price."

"The future of Iran belongs to its people, not to Washington, not to Tel Aviv, and not to foreign intelligence agencies," the federation stressed.

In Pakistan, at least 23 people were killed during demonstrations across the country on Sunday, including 10 protesters outside the US consulate in Karachi. US Marines reportedly opened fire on a crowd of people who attempted to storm the facility. Eleven others were killed in the northern city of Skardu, where people set a United Nations office ablaze. Two people were also slain in capital Islamabad.

The Progressive International (PI) cabinet published a statement condemning the war "in the strongest possible terms."

"The assault once again exposes the true character of US diplomacy," the group said. "Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington—mediated by Oman—were little more than a screen behind which the Trump administration coordinated an agenda of [a] 'major combat operation' under the banner of ‘Operation Epic Fury.’"

(Continued in right column)

Question related to this article:
 
How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?

(Continued from left column)

"Trump has been clear: This is a regime change offensive—devoid of any legal justification let alone authorization," the PI cabinet continued. "Trump has framed these strikes as 'preemptive,' necessary to eliminate 'imminent threats' and to defend national security. Yet Iran has made no immediate threats to the US. On the contrary, it is a long-standing ambition of the US and Israel to wage war on Iran—the lethal consequences of which will be borne by its people."

"Imperialist war does not liberate peoples—it subjugates them," the group added. "The evidence is found in the ruins of Gaza, Baghdad, and Tripoli, where bombs leveled cities and 'democracy promotion' left ashes in its wake."

Siphamandla Zondi, a professor of politics at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, told the Guardian that “this is a war of domination and subordination, therefore it has imperialist undertones and motives" and "makes the world unsafe for all of us.”

The International Migrants Alliance (IMA) issued a statement Monday calling the attack "against international law."

"The bombing in Iran has killed hundreds of people, most of them are children and civilians," the group said. "The aggression is part of the Israel-US renewed war to dominate the West Asia region and plunder their resources… For decades, the United States has armed, funded, and protected Israel’s military actions while destabilizing West Asia through sanctions, interventions, and war. The result is endless violence, displacement, and suffering for ordinary people."

"The ongoing attacks will create new waves of refugees," IMA added. "Families are forced to flee across borders that are increasingly militarized. Imperialist wars create a brutal cycle of forced migration: People are driven from their homes, safety, and future, only to face criminalization, detention, or exploitation as migrants and refugees abroad."

Indian-born academic Amitav Acharya, author of The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West, said in an interview with the Guardian that “many countries in the Global South are going to look for a coalition of powers that will stand up to the United States, as the United States is seen as so aggressive, so imperial."

That sentiment was echoed across the developing world. In Brazil, the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) said: "Trump is a threat to the world. This is a criminal violation of Iranian sovereignty and international law."

"To justify the war, the United States lies by stating that Iran threatens the American people and the world," the party continued. "We already know this story: The 'weapons of mass destruction' of Iraq… have never been found. Trump invades Iran to defend American neocolonial interests and to give a message to the world that the American government does not accept the existence of independent countries in the world system."

"Once again, US imperialism and Israeli Zionism elect the path of war and barbarism, bombing civilian facilities and killing innocents," PSOL added. "We demand an immediate end to the bombing and express our total solidarity with the Iranian people.

(Editor’s Note: We are impressed by the analysis of Professor John Mearsheimer that “it is almost impossible for me to see how Israel and the US win this war . . . Remember that in the Vietnam War, the US won virtually every battle and lost the war.”)

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DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global

‘We Are Sailing to Cuba’: Humanitarian Coalition Announces Flotilla to Break US Blockade

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Brett Wilkins from Common Dreams (republished according to Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

As the Trump administration tightens an already devastating economic embargo of Cuba by targeting the island's fuel imports in a bid to topple the country's socialist government, a coalition of progressive groups on Thursday announced plans for a flotilla to deliver food, medicine, and other essential supplies to the besieged Cuban people.


Members of CodePink protest the United States embargo of Cuba and Cuba’s inclusion on the US state sponsors of terrorism list in Los Angeles on October 29, 2022. (Photo by CodePink/X)

Members of Progressive International, CodePink, and other direct action and advocacy groups plan to set sail for Cuba next month in the Nuestra América—or Our America—Flotilla, which they said is inspired by the Global Sumud Flotilla missions to break Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza amid the ongoing genocide in the Palestinian exclave.

"We are sailing to Cuba, bringing critical humanitarian aid for its people," the flotilla organizers said on their website. "The Trump administration is strangling the island, cutting off fuel, flights, and critical supplies for survival. The consequences are lethal, for newborns and parents, for the elderly and the sick."

"That is why we are launching the Nuestra América Flotilla, setting sail from across the Caribbean Sea in solidarity with the Cuban people," the organizers continued. "And we are asking for your support, to help us prepare the mission and purchase the food and medicine that we will bring to the Cuban people."

"Together, we can break the siege, save lives, and stand up for the cause of Cuban self-determination," they added.

(Continued in right column)

Question related to this article:
 
How can the blockade of Cuba be stopped?

(Continued from left column)

The announcement of the flotilla came as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on Cuba's socialist government by further suffocating the island's economy via an oil embargo similar to the one imposed on Venezuela before last month's US invasion and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

At the time, President Donald Trump threatened the leaders of Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico that they could be next.

Trump reversed former President Joe Biden's eleventh-hour move in January 2025 to remove Cuba from the US state sponsors of terrorism list, a designation utterly divorced from reality. Trump officials have cited Cuba's baseless inclusion on the list as justification for measures taken against the country's government and people.

The US embargo on Cuba dates to the early 1960s when the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations responded to the successful revolution that overthrew a brutal US-backed dictatorship with a blockade accompanied by a decadeslong campaign of state-sponsored terrorism against the Cuban people that left thousands dead and more than $1 trillion in economic damages, according to the Cuban government.

Every year since 1992—with the exception of the Covid-19 pandemic year of 2020—the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn and call for an end to the US blockade of Cuba.

Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler told El País' Veronica Garrido Thursday, "The US government is drowning the Cuban people, who are running out of light, have no food, no medicine, no energy."

"I do not exaggerate when I say that we are seeing in Cuba the same playbook that Israel applied to the people of Gaza: an encirclement, an act of collective punishment that violates every aspect of international law,” he continued.

"We hope that [the flotilla] will be a mechanism of popular pressure to the governments of the world that have the responsibility, before international law, to protect the fundamental rights of the Cuban people and export the energy required by the island,” Adler said.

“There is nothing illegal about what we are doing," he added. "We are coming to a sovereign country and delivering humanitarian aid. We are ready to take risks in the name of humanity and the fundamental right of the Cuban people.
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DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Latin America, North America,