This is the recording of the launch of BASIC and ICCS’ report Nuclear Responsibilities: A New Approach for Thinking and Talking about Nuclear Weapons on Monday 2nd November 2020, 09:00-10:30 ET / 14:00-15:30 GMT.
There is an urgent need to reverse the deepening of global nuclear risks and distrust in global nuclear politics. Yet much of the contemporary global conversation on nuclear weapons is characterised by suspicion and blame about who is or is not acting responsibly: reproducing antagonisms and limiting the potential for cooperation on nuclear risk reduction and disarmament.
At the launch of our major report – ‘Nuclear Responsibilities: A New Approach for Thinking and Talking about Nuclear Weapons‘ – BASIC and the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS) at the University of Birmingham introduced the Nuclear Responsibilities Method. The Method is designed to support officials, non-governmental experts, and publics in thinking and talking about their responsibilities, and the responsibilities of others, in relation to nuclear weapons. Through its practice, it is intended to facilitate more emphatic and values-driven policy making and dialogue, and move global nuclear politics away from its current culture of blame.
This event outlined the Method’s diplomatic and academic origins, framework, road-testing process between 2018 and 2020, reception, impact to date, and expected next steps. Remarks were made by the report’s co-authors and two officials who took part in the pilot process, followed by a Q&A session.
Speakers:
- Professor Nicholas J. Wheeler (ICCS, University of Birmingham and co-author)
- Sebastian Brixey-Williams (Co-Director, BASIC and co-author)
- Sarah Price (Head of UK Government Counter Proliferation and Arms Control Centre)
- Zahid Rastam (Principal Assistant Secretary to the Multilateral Security Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia)
- Alice Spilman (Chair)