Kehkashan Basu speaking on the UN High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament in New York
Our Youth Ambassador Kehkashan Basu is speaking at the UN High-Level meeting on Nuclear Disarmament in New York today. You can read her presentation here.
WHAT WE DO
The WFC Commission on Peace and Disarmament engages policy-makers and other stakeholders on policy-solutions to the challenges stemming from the continued existence of weapons of mass destruction, the production and trafficking of conventional weapons and the lasting health effects from explosive remnants of war.
By facilitating exchanges of experiences and expertise between countries and regions, promoting best practice and policies and offering practical tools for policy-action, the programme aims to ensure that the benefits of disarmament are shared across borders.
Working Areas:
Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones and Regional Security in the Middle East, North-East Asia and Europe
Nuclear-weapon-free-zones have already been established in the Antarctic, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific, South East Asia, Africa and Central Asia and have been proposed for the Middle East, North-East Asia and Europe. A panel of experts will provide updates on these three proposals, explore the role such NWFZs could play in the region, and provide participants with an opportunity to ask questions and discuss the issue.
Kehkashan Basu speaking on the UN High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament in New York
Our Youth Ambassador Kehkashan Basu is speaking at the UN High-Level meeting on Nuclear Disarmament in New York today. You can read her presentation here.
Press Release: Kehkashan Basu to speak at UN High Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament
18 year old environmental activist and youth leader Kehkashan Basu was selected by the President of the UN General Assembly to address the September 26 United Nations High Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament as one of the two representatives of global civil society. Ms Basu says: ‘The United Nations and its member countries should focus more on disarmament for sustainable development’
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Towards a
Reallocation of Military Spending
While $1.75trillion USD is spent each year worldwide for the military, every 15 seconds a child dies from malnutrition, 780 million people have no access to clean water and insufficient progress is made in the fight against climate change. A gradual cut and reallocation of military spending could help solve these and other pressing issues of our time. We work with policy-makers worldwide to establish an expert working group under the auspices of the UN to determine how such reallocating processes should be structured in the global political context.
Working in partnership with civil society actors to achieve a reallocation of funds from the military towards sustainable development initiatives.
Developing and presenting proposals on how to achieve a reallocation of military spending.
Using artistic and creative tools to raise awareness of the issue among the public.
CAMPAIGN
One trillion dollars
is being spent to modernize the nuclear arsenals of nine countries over the next 10 years.
We’re going to show the scale
of this investment and how it could be devoted to peace and humanitarian needs, rather than the threat of nuclear annihilation
while governments meet at the UN
for the first ever United Nations High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament.
We’re going to count the money
by hand, $100million per minute in $1million dollar notes, in front of the United Nations and at other publicly visible places in New York City. Counting will take 7 days and nights.
You can help!
Join a team of two to count for half an hour or more.
Teams will include people of all ages, nations, backgrounds; celebrities, activists, politicians, UN officials, diplomats, artists, religious leaders, sportspeople, refugees and others.
Initiatives
The Bread Tank
Artistic Intervention: “The Bread Tank”
Two years in a row, we took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro (in 2012 at the UN Summit Rio+20 and again in 2013 at the World Youth Day of the Catholic Church, together with Pope Francis), equipped with a life-sized war tank, covered with bread and featuring the slogan “Bread not Bombs”. Hundreds of thousands of young people paid tribute to this important message, international media coverage followed. The Catholic Church asked for a report about the success of the Bread Tank.
Financing the SDGs
Financing the SDGs
Our proposal highlights how cutting military spending could help to finance the SDG-processes, for which an additional 37,5 trillion US$ is needed. We presented our concept at the OECD conference in Paris and at the Peace and Planet conference in New York, and gave it as an input into the International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa for which we could win more than 20 NGOs as endorsers including ‘Mayors for Peace’.
Spreading Best Disarmament Policies
Towards a
Nuclear Weapon-Free World
Since 2011, the World Future Council has conducted a project on identifying, raising awareness for and spreading exemplary disarmament policies, with a focus on policies advancing nuclear disarmament. Over the years, through our partnership with Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, we have engaged parliamentarians across the globe on pursuing such policies through workshops, briefings and practical tools.
Our unique Parliamentary Handbook on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament has been sent to all parliaments in the world and been translated into several languages.
Our Future Policy Award on disarmament highlighted a range of disarmament policies that have contributed to the achievement of peace, sustainable development, and security.
Together with UNDP, we brought together representatives of government, police authorities and civil society from Argentina and Bosnia-Herzegovina on sharing best practice in curbing armed violence.
Initiatives
Nuclear Abolition Forum
Nuclear Abolition Forum
A joint-project of eight civil society organisations, the Nuclear Abolition Forum consists of an online portal (abolitionforum.org) and periodical aimed at fostering dialogue between academics, governments, disarmament experts and NGOs on key issues for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. Hosted by the WFC, the Forum is able to rely on over 70 high-level consultants to ensure quality contributions. The inaugural edition of the Forum’s periodical focused on the humanitarian imperative for nuclear disarmament, while the second edition examined the nuclear deterrence doctrine.
Choose Life Without Weapons
Choose Life Without Weapons
We joined the UNDP initiative ‘Choose Life Without Weapons’ in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) to bring together the experiences of Argentina and BiH in reducing armed violence and draw lessons from the design, implementation and results of each nation’s small arms campaigns.
2013 Future Policy Award
2013 Future Policy Award
Our annual Future Policy Award in 2013 was held in partnership with the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs and the Inter-Parliamentary Union on the theme of Disarmament. The winning policies display the diversity of the disarmament theme, targeting small arms and light weapons, nuclear weapons, cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines, among others. The brochure on the winning policies is available in English, French and Spanish.
Basel Peace Office
Basel Peace Office
The Basel Peace Office was established to advance research, teaching and policy-development programs dedicated to international peace, conflict resolution and security to achieve the global abolition of nuclear weapons. The Basel Peace Office brings international organisations to Basel that have a long record of successful work on international security and nuclear disarmament.
Climate-Nuclear Nexus
Links between
Climate Change and Nuclear Weapons
This project highlights the interplay between climate change and risks associated with nuclear weapons, facilities and materials, with the aim of forging solutions to these two principal threats to human survival. We have organised workshops and prepared briefings for policy-makers, academic and civil society organisations on how these threats interfere with each other and what policies are available to move towards a more secure and sustainable future.
We have highlighted how climate change and nuclear threats affect the Marshall Islands and what that country is doing to tackle both threats, including their nuclear disarmament cases at the ICJ.
We released a ground-breaking study on the linkages between climate change and risks from nuclear weapons and installations.
Initiatives
Nuclear Zero Cases
Nuclear Zero Cases
WFC has supported the unprecedented legal action taken by the Marshall Islands in the International Court of Justice against the nine nuclear-armed states for failing to comply with their nuclear disarmament obligations. We are a member of the consortium supporting the cases and serve as a consultant to the legal team.
OUR POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS CAN BE FOUND ON
Contact
Holger Güssefeld
Project Consultant
holger.guessefeld@worldfuturecouncil.org
Alyn Ware
Chair Peace & Disarmament Commission
alyn@pnnd.org
Neshan Gunasekera
Co-Chair, Peace & Disarmament Commission
neshan.gunasekera@gmail.com
Peace & Disarmament Councillors
SUPPORTERS
