February 3rd, 2010
This commentary by Douglas Roche and Ernie Regehr in the February 3, 2010 issue of Embassy: Canada’s Foreign Policy Newsweekly, grows out of last week’s conference, “Practical Steps to Zero Nuclear Weapons.” High-ranking officials of the US State Department, NATO and the United Nations were in Ottawa last week to meet with the leaders of […]
Read MoreJanuary 31st, 2010
CIGI Senior Fellow Mark Sedra has launched an excellent new blog on Afghanistan, “Dispatches from the Field: Perspectives on the Afghanistan Conflict,” available athttp://www.cigionline.org/publications/blogs/dispatches. In addition to his own commentaries, Mark regularly invites guest postings. The following is my January 24 post from Kabul, sent during my recent visit there. It doesn’t take long for […]
Read MoreJanuary 30th, 2010
Earlier this week, January 25-26, a group of Canadian NGOs[i] sponsored a conference attended by officials and experts from the United States, Canada, and NATO headquarters to consider and critique a set of recommendations prepared by the sponsoring groups. The recommendations, which focused on issues related to the forthcoming review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation […]
Read MoreJanuary 11th, 2010
Three states with nuclear weapons remain outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Now the Commission on “Eliminating Nuclear Threats” helpfully proposes treating them as if they were nuclear weapon states within the NPT; but only if they agree to “uphold non-proliferation and disarmament norms and practices at least as rigorous as those accepted by nuclear-weapon […]
Read MoreJanuary 4th, 2010
With the international community’s nuclear stand-off with Iran intensifying, a new report on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament calls for a redefinition of the fundamentals of the dispute. Bringing Iran into full accord with the global nonproliferation regime will require “acceptance by the international community of the reality of Iran’s enrichment program…in exchange for acceptance by […]
Read MoreDecember 10th, 2009
Canadian churches “encourage Canada to mount a peace mission and to accord it the same level of political energy and commitment, along with requisite material support, as has been accorded the military mission to date.” The Canadian Council of Churches has issued a new brief[i] calling on “Canada to mount a new peace mission in […]
Read MoreDecember 8th, 2009
In meetings last week with civil society representatives in South Korea there was little mistaking where they think responsibility for the current nuclear standoff with North Korea rests – and it’s not primarily with Kim Jong-il. A visit to the Hwacheon district and a “World Peace Bell Park” and newly-constructed conference centre on the edge […]
Read MoreNovember 30th, 2009
Iran’s announcement of another 10 uranium enrichment plants[i] is sufficiently out there to be neither very alarming nor of much predictive value in considering the long-term development of Iran’s nuclear programs. While not exactly alarming, the move is depressingly indicative of a failing process and as such seems to be lifting the spirits of the […]
Read MoreNovember 23rd, 2009
A November 13-14 public forum at Toronto City Hall looked at the opportunities and obstacles to nuclear disarmament. The program and details are available athttp://zeronuclearweapons.com/. The following notes are part 2 of my comments, focusing on Canadian disarmament diplomacy priorities. The first, and really most urgent, priority is for Canada to rediscover its traditional of […]
Read MoreNovember 16th, 2009
A November 13-14 public forum at Toronto City Hall looked at the opportunities and obstacles to nuclear disarmament. The program and details are available athttp://zeronuclearweapons.com/. The following notes are my comments on some of the obstacles. The current possibilities for finally locking in some significant gains in the slow movement toward zero nuclear weapons are […]
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