BASIC’s mission is to safeguard humanity and Earth’s ecosystem from nuclear risks and interconnected security risks, for generations to come.

The Programme on Nuclear Responsibilities seeks to achieve this mission by clarifying and tightening the normative regime of restraint and responsibility around nuclear weapons and technologies, creating spaces for distrust reduction, and thereby shaping state policies and practices of risk reduction and disarmament. To do so, the Programme works at the national, regional, and multilateral levels, using its flagship Nuclear Responsibilities Approach and third-party facilitated dialogue process.

The Nuclear Responsibilities programme has been co-created by BASIC and the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS) at the University of Birmingham.

The core principles that drive our work on the Programme are:

• Inclusivity
• Co-creation and Co-development
• Empathy
• Active Listening
• Neutrality
• Nonviolent Communication
• Collective Problem-solving

The Nuclear Responsibilities Approach (co-created by BASIC and the ICCS) is a way of reframing how we think, talk, and write about nuclear weapons: one that puts a meaningful exploration of responsibility at the centre of our mindsets, our dialogues and our publications. In doing so, the Approach aims to provide an alternative vocabulary and model for exchange that can stimulate new thinking and research, and stimulate a new kind of dialogue to reduce distrust and nuclear risks.

At the national level, the Nuclear Responsibilities Approach offers new conceptual tools to shape internal debates and deliberations over nuclear weapons policy and planning. We contend that developing robust and ethical policies and practices in relation to nuclear weapons starts with a rigorous, bottom-up assessment of nuclear responsibilities. Over the past few years, we have been working with local partners to run national nuclear responsibilities roundtables with the UK, India, Pakistan, the Netherlands, Japan, Malaysia, and Brazil.

At the regional level, the Approach has fostered constructive dialogue on shared nuclear responsibilities to reduce nuclear risk in South Asia and the Asia-Pacific. Over the past few years, we facilitated several track 2/1.5 dialogues, including India-Pakistan bilateral dialogues as well as multilateral dialogues with representatives from the wider Asia-Pacific region. The Programme also publishes extensive reports and commentaries on nuclear risk reduction in South Asia, including a compendium of essays of Indian and Pakistani scholars and journalists on bilateral crisis communication mechanisms.

At the international level, the Approach is offered as a collective guiding principle that can help transcend the chronic blame game at the heart of international nuclear politics that stymies dialogue, cooperation, and trust.

We are grateful for the generous support of the Counter Proliferation and Arms Control Centre (CPACC) at the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth & Development Office.

Since 2021, the Programme has collaborated with the Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Research (CSSPR) at the University of Lahore and the Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies (IPCS) in New Delhi.

 

 

 

 

 

Meet the Team:

Dr Chiara Cervasio: Programme Manager

Mhairi McClafferty: Policy Fellow

Eva-Nour Repussard: Policy Fellow 

Alice Spilman: Policy Fellow

 

Programme Board:

Sebastian Brixey-Williams: Executive Director of BASIC

Professor Nicholas J. Wheeler:  Non-Resident Senior Fellow at BASIC, Professor of International Relations at the University of Birmingham

With thanks to our funders at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the University of Birmingham.