A collection of essays discussing Canada's role in accelerating the process of ascertaining the appropriate degree and form of UN involvement in arms control verification.

"Historical Dictionary of Arms Control and Disarmament also provides information that is comprehensible to all readers. Jeffrey A. Larsen and James M. Smith present a context for the broader range of international relations at a given point in time, extending the utility of the dictionary beyond just a narrow examination of arms control."--BOOK JACKET.

This book analyses the politics of the humanitarian disarmament community—a loose coalition of activist and advocacy groups, humanitarian agencies and diplomats—who have successfully achieved international treaties banning landmines, cluster munitions and nuclear weapons, as well as restricting the global arms trade. Two campaigns have won Nobel Peace Prizes. Disarmament has long been a dirty word in the international relations lexicon. But the success of the humanitarian disarmament agenda shows that people often choose to prohibit or limit certain violent technologies, for reasons of security, honour, ethics or humanitarianism. This edited volume showcases interdisciplinary research by scholars and practitioners seeking to understand the dynamics and impact of the new global activism on weapons. While some raise concerns that humanitarian disarmament may be piecemeal and depoliticizing, others see opportunities to breathe new life into moribund arms control policymaking. Foreword by 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams.

This book explores the global politics of disarmament through emerging international relations (IR) theories of discourse and imagination. Each chapter reflects on an aspect of contemporary activism on weapons through an analogous story from literary tradition. Shahrazade, convenor of the 1001 Nights, offers a potent metaphor for the humanitarian advocacy seeking to moderate the behaviour of violent people. The author reads Don Quixote in Cambodia’s minefields, reflects on Lysistrata at Greenham Common and considers how tropes in The Tempest were enrolled in both Pacific nuclear testing and efforts to resist it. The book draws on ethnographic fieldwork in communities affected by weapons and disarmament advocacy at the UN and calls for a re-enchantment of IR, alive to affect, ritual and myth.

It has been said many times that the human future is clouded by multiple and mutually interacting problems. While in the 19th century we had the luxury of believing in almost automatic progress - an "onward and upward" assumption - that belief has been shattered by two world wars, more than 150 smaller ones, the invention of weapons of mass destruction, increasing degradation of the environment, both by pollution and resource exhaustion (i.e. adding "bads" and subtracting "goods" from our natural endowment), a horrendous (and increasing) gap between rich and poor within and between nations, explosions of racism and chauvinistic nationalism, increasing use of torture as a police method, totalitarian regimes, repeated episodes of genocide ... not a picture of progress toward a better world. And yet, we have not quite lost faith in the human potential for more beneficial and harmonious development.

The UN needs reform in order to meet the challenges of the unbalanced and alienated world whose outline is now on the horizon.

In 1995 a Conference is to be convened to review and extend the Treaty on the NonProliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The Future of the NPT brings together a distinguished group of individuals, including the elected President of the 1995 NPT Conference, to analyse four crucial agenda areas relevant to the Conference: the preConference activities to be undertaken by both States Parties and the Conference Secretariat; those security issues that relate to a review of the treaty, such as nuclear disarmament and security assurances; peaceful uses and verification questions; and regional issues. With nuclear nonproliferation currently occupying a prominent position on the international security agenda, the 1995 Conference offers a unique opportunity for a constructive discussion on these areas and it is hoped that this volume will provide a contribution to that end.