11th January 2022 Geneva, Switzerland
I was going to use this blog post to write about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which was due to begin in New York on 4 January. Instead, the week before we were due to travel, it became clear that the Omicron situation in New York made it impossible for the UN to host […]
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22nd September 2021 Geneva, Switzerland
Yesterday we wrapped up the Second Review Conference of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). It’s been an unusual meeting, to say the least. We were supposed to gather in Lausanne in November last year. Of course, the pandemic put paid to that; so instead we held ‘part one’ online in November, and postponed the […]
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8th June 2021 Geneva, Switzerland
2021 marches on, and it’s time for another update on the UK’s initiative on reducing space threats through norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviours. Regular readers will be familiar with the story so far. The UK-sponsored resolution of that name (A/RES/75/36) was adopted by the General Assembly in December. Four key ideas underpinned it. […]
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14th January 2021 Geneva, Switzerland
For the last couple of Januaries I’ve used this blog to look ahead to the year to come in the Geneva disarmament world. After 2020, I hesitate to be definite in predicting anything… The pandemic is far from over. For at least the first part of 2021, it’ll still be impossible to hold large-scale in-person […]
10th December 2020 Geneva, Switzerland
Back in August, I posted a blog about the launch of our new initiative on outer space security at the UN General Assembly. Throughout September and into October we were busy consulting UN member states on the text – bilaterally, in small groups, and in consultations open to the whole membership – and making adjustments […]
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4th December 2020 Geneva, Switzerland
I’ve spent much of the last two weeks in virtual meetings of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC) and the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). Land mines and cluster munitions are especially pernicious weapons. They claim lives and limbs, and prevent civilians from returning to their land, for sometimes decades after conflict is over. One […]
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27th August 2020 Geneva, Switzerland
When we think about security in outer space, it’s tempting to fall back on tropes from science fiction or the movies – dramatic battles between space-suited soldiers in Moonraker, or powerful weapons threatening planets in Star Wars. In reality, there are threats to security and stability on Earth involving outer space, but they don’t include […]
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7th July 2020 Geneva, Switzerland
The Conference on Disarmament resumed its 2020 session on Tuesday, after a break of 122 days. (We had been supposed to meet a week earlier, but technical problems with the new remote participation platform meant the meeting was cancelled at the eleventh hour.) But did anyone miss the CD while it was silent? Should it […]
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11th June 2020 Geneva, Switzerland
I last blogged in late February on the P5 Conference in London, looking ahead to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in April. The coronavirus outbreak in China was on our minds, of course, but none of us knew then how it would affect the rest of the world. Switzerland reported its first death from […]
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21st February 2020 Geneva, Switzerland
Last week saw a major milestone in preparations for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in April, when the five NPT Nuclear Weapon States met at Lancaster House in London for their ninth annual ‘P5’ conference. We began the Conference by welcoming the new RevCon President-designate, Gustavo Zlauvinen of Argentina, and the chairs of […]
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