Statements by RCW
Presentation on gender and nuclear weapons
Presentation by Ray Acheson, Reaching Critical Will of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 2010 National Model United Nations, New York 31 March 2010 I have been asked to speak today about the connections between gender and nuclear weapons. This might seem like an unlikely topic, but there are actually a lot of interesting things to say about this. I’ll start by laying out some of the background material. First, a note on what I mean by gender. I am not talking about men and women. I am not going to be saying men do this or are prone to this, or women do this better or worse then men. When I’m talking about gender, I am talking about cultural associations of behaviours and characteristics with what it is means to be a man or masculine and what it is to be a woman or feminine. These conceptions change over time and vary from culture to culture. The point is, certain characteristics, personalities, ideas, expressions, concerns, interests, information, and...
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Presentation on nuclear disarmament for peace and development
Presentation by Ray Acheson, Reaching Critical Will of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, to the Lower Hudson Valley Catholic College and University Consortium 26 March 2010 In nuclear weapon policy circles these days, people often say that nuclear weapons are useless. The flippancy of this statement should not undermine its truth. Many people in civil society have always questioned not just the moral justifications for the existence of nuclear weapons but also the political, economic, environmental, and social ramifications and the resulting supposed “usefulness” of possessing such weapons. Sixty-five years after the creation of the bomb, many policy, military, and political elites have joined civil society experts in saying that nuclear weapons are no longer useful. However, their interpretation of what it is useful is proving to be quite different from what the general public’s interpretation of useful might be. These new champions of getting rid of...
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WILPF statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2010
Also see information about the 2010 WILPF IWD seminar Distinguished Delegates, I would like to start of by thanking all members of the CD for letting us speak here today. We, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) represent women from many parts of the world, have taken this opportunity to address the Conference on Disarmament on International Women’s Day, a day that links women’s engagement in political processes for peace and justice, since 1984. We appreciate the opportunity to speak directly to the Conference in a plenary meeting for the first time. 2010 is an important year in many ways. In this room, we all know about the NPT Review Conference in May and other significant events, but we would like to remind you that 2010 is also the 10th anniversary of the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security. By placing gender within the UN’s mandate of maintaining international peace and security, UNSCR 1325 provides an important...
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WILPF statement to the UN Security Council Summit on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) welcomes the UN Security Council Summit on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament to be held on 24 September 2009. We urge the UN Security Council to use this opportunity to constructively contribute to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation by taking steps toward a nuclear weapon free world and the promotion of collective human security and security for all life on this planet. Ahead of the summit, the US government released a draft resolution for the UN Security Council to consider as an outcome document, which was then consolidated into a revised draft with input from other Council members. WILPF is encouraged by the scope of the document, which covers a wide range of important issues. In particular, WILPF welcomes its recognition of the importance of negative security assurances and nuclear weapon free zone treaties and its commitment to supporting the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency on...
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Presentation on nuclear weapons and security discourses
Presentation by Ray Acheson, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, to the 62nd annual DPI/NGO Conference Afternoon Workshop: International Decade for Disarmament: How NGOs Can Advocate Human Security and Nuclear Disarmament 11 September 2009 This presentation will focus on one small element of what NGO representatives can do to prepare for the decade on disarmament: specifically, creating a new discourse for disarmament and human security. The relationship between nuclear weapons and human security is similar to that of the relationship between economic inequalities and social justice: If you have one, the other is very difficult to obtain. Nuclear weapons are not normally part of the human security discourse. However, they make the practical development of human security very difficult. Nuclear weapons act as an existential threat to humanity and life on this planet. They also maintain the structural inequalities between the elite,...
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WILPF statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2009
Also see information about the 2009 WILPF IWD seminar We, women from many parts the world, take this opportunity to address the Conference on Disarmament, through a proxy, as we have done since 1984, and report on our seminar “Getting To Peace in the Middle East - Changing Threat Perceptions”, held here in the Palais on 4 March 2009. A seminar held to stimulate discussion and bring in new ideas about this important disarmament and security issue. We are fully aware that the Conference on Disarmament cannot function in a vacuum, and that successful negotiations depend not only on the good will and concerted efforts of its members, but to a large extent on the state of relations among nations and their governments. This year the seminar was held in two parts- the first, a panel discussion focused on increasing understanding about the culture of fear that is pervasive in the Middle East. Panelists noted that weapons are used to kill people and destroy infrastructure, creating this...
WILPF statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2008
Also see information about the 2008 WILPF IWD seminar We, women from many parts the world, take this opportunity to raise our voices, which are often suppressed or ignored, on disarmament, peace and security. The 2008 International Women's Day Disarmament Seminar highlighted the crises of human security and sustainable development caused by military spending, war and weapon profiteering, and the persistence of ideas and expectations of gender that shape how war, women, and peace are considered. This year's Seminar included over 100 participants from non-governmental organisations from more than 40 countries and marked two significant anniversaries. The first is the 30th anniversary of the First Special Session on Disarmament of the UN General Assembly, possibly the highest point of consensus and vision ever achieved in multilateral disarmament diplomacy, which created the Conference on Disarmament we have today and set out its ten-part agenda. Our seminar was directly linked to...
WILPF statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2007
Distinguished Delegates, In 1975 the United Nations first recognized International Women's Day, which has been celebrated by women since at least 1909. International Women's Day has been traditionally linked to women's engagement in political processes for peace and justice. This year, civil society around the world is marking International Women’s Day through protesting war, campaigning for Nuclear Disarmament and demanding equal participation in all levels of decision-making. As we have done since 1984, we are bringing the voices of women to the CD. Non-Governmental Organizations have an important role to play in international decision-making. The participation of civil society in shaping our world and guarding its most precious ideas and values is vital. While governments remain the ultimate decision-makers, it is NGOs that allow citizens across the globe to partake in the political process and make their voices heard. The role of women's organisations, in particular, has been...
WILPF statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2006
Ladies and Gentleman, Distinguished Delegates, We were hoping to be able to read this statement to you in 2006 for the first time in the more than twenty years we have been presenting it to the CD. However, despite all the support we have heard over the past several weeks, apparently it is not yet possible to have a female civil society leader address you from the floor in a statement delivered once a year on the occasion of International Women’s Day. Although we are disappointed that we are unable to read our own statement, we see this as a testimony to the power of civil society and women’s NGOs in particular. We would especially like to thank the Ambassadors and representatives who so eloquently spoke on our behalf to request the opportunity to address this forum ourselves. International Women’s Day began in 1909 and has been directly linked with the engagement of women in political processes. In the CD, only 13% of member state delegations are led by women. This year, civil...
WILPF statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2005
Mr. President,
Distinguished Delegates,
Since 1984, a group of Geneva-based NGOs, together with members of the NGO Working Group on Peace have held a seminar to mark International Women’s Day – 8 March – in tribute to the tireless work done by women around the world for the achievement of justice, peace and security. We again use this opportunity to engage the public and governments to look holistically at issues of peace and security, and to recognize the centuries’ old demand of women for nations to totally and universally disarm.
Women mobilize support for disarmament and peace. In the last century alone, educational and petition campaigns, such as the more than nine million signatures collected and sent to the 1926 disarmament conference in Geneva, or the one initiated in 1959 by the European Movement of Women Against Nuclear Armament, have rallied wide public support for general and nuclear disarmament. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom along with...
WILPF statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2004
Madame President and distinguished Members of the CD, We first would like to thank you for officially acknowledging the relationship of civil society to the CD. We welcome the decision taken on February 12 of this year as a first step upon which further engagement can be built. Throughout the war-plagued history of civilization, leaders and decision-makers have been operating within a framework of "national security." Most actions taken on the international stage are based on the preservation of national security. How successful has this framework been? Since the end of the Second World War, there has not been more than a week without some conflict somewhere on the planet. During the fifty years of the Cold War, the world has witnessed the bloody embodiment of "national security" during which 315 armed conflicts took more than 27 million lives wounding 100 million others. At the heart of the Cold War lay the notion of nuclear deterrence. While the Cold War ended more than ten...
WILPF statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2003
Distinguished Members of the Conference on Disarmament,
Every year since 1984, International Women's Day has been marked by women's organizations in Geneva with a seminar on disarmament issues, and with a statement to the Conference on Disarmament. The statements and reports from these seminars on gender and small arms, missiles, the militarization of space, nuclear deterrence, war and the media and feminist approaches to security have been widely distributed to inform women's organizations about disarmament issues, and peace and disarmament organizations about women,s perspectives on these matters. This year the seminar examines the economic consequences of war and how women's rights are undermined by ineffective disarmament and their systematic exclusion from decision-making.
In October of 2000, the Security Council emphasized the relevance of gender issues to its work. Since then, it has celebrated the passage of Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security each...
WILPF statement to the Conference on Disarmament on International Women's Day 2002
Distinguished Members of the Conference on Disarmament,
Thank you for giving the annual International Women's Seminar the opportunity to address you on the occasion of International Women's Day. This Day, which actually falls tomorrow, the Sth of March, has its roots in the centuries-old struggle of women for the right to participate equally with men in making the decisions that determine the economic and social conditions of our societies and concern the question of war or peace. For decades now, women see ever more clearly, and particularly those living in regions of conflict, how necessary is peace and disarmament to improving
their working and living conditions and the achievement of gender equality. They see disarmament as a necessary means to limit conflict and prevent war, and to free resources to enable the improvement of economic and social conditions for themselves, their families and their communities.
Both females and males need and have a right to a stable and...
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