Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction

Reforming nuclear weapons policy, plutonium problems, and how physicists can help - Portland State University
2024-05-20
Abstract
Physicists invented nuclear weapons over seventy-five years ago. Today, they still threaten humanity with catastrophe and, recently, this risk has been increasing. The US has over 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons plus thousands more inactive or retired. Current policy calls for maintaining and “modernizing” about 4,000 nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, at the cost of several tens of billions of dollars per year and significant risks to the environment and public health. Physicists can play an important role in providing scientific oversight and advocating for reform. I will discuss issues associated with plutonium pit production as a case study. Further details on the plutonium pit issue: Modern thermonuclear weapons contain plutonium pits, which are hollow spherical shells of plutonium metal, as part of their fission triggers. These pits are inherently difficult, costly and hazardous to produce. The Rocky Flats pit production plant, near Denver, Colorado, was closed because of environmental infractions in 1992. Since then, pit production expertise has been maintained at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Current US policy calls for the production of 80 pits per year by 2030, despite the National Nuclear Security Administration (within the Department of Energy) acknowledging that this is unachievable. Furthermore, the justification for this production goal is controversial, as is the construction of a new production facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which is to cost over ten billion dollars and will pose significant risks to the surrounding community. The public deserves better and more transparent study of the policy options.
About the Speaker
Curtis T. Asplund is an assistant professor in the Physics & Astronomy Department at San José State University. Prior to this, he was a visiting faculty member at Franklin & Marshall College, and earlier was a high school teacher for several years near Washington, D.C. He completed his postdoctoral studies at Columbia University and KU Leuven, and he earned his Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara, where he studied theoretical aspects of black holes and entanglement in quantum field theory. His interests in ethics, public policy, and the role of scientists in society emerged in his original stomping grounds of Southern California and were developed further in the liberal arts climate of his undergraduate alma mater, Oberlin College. His perspective on American military power is informed by growing up on and around U.S. military bases and having close family serving in the Marine Corps. Recently, he has studied nuclear weapons policy as a Next- Generation Fellow with the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction.

Understanding the New Nuclear Arms Race: Views From Washington, Moscow and Beijing
2024-07-01 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
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This webinar delves into the multifaceted dimensions of the contemporary nuclear arms race, offering in-depth analyses from three of the world’s nuclear powers. Experts will explore the motivations, defense policies, and diplomatic postures of the United States, Russia, and China, providing the audience with a comprehensive understanding of each nation’s policies and perspective. The triangular approach aims to foster a nuanced dialogue on the implications for global security, arms control treaties, and the prospects for future nuclear disarmament efforts.
Speakers include:

Dr. Sharon Weiner, Associate Professor, American University
Dr. Timur Kadyshev, Senior Researcher, Inst. for Peace Research and Security Policy
Dr. Tong Zhao, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Dr. Zia Mian (moderator), Princeton Program on Science and Global Security

REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Dr. Timur Kadyshev presentation slides: View from Moscow (PDF)

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Sharon K. Weiner is an Associate Professor at American University’s School of International Service and a visiting researcher at Princeton’s Program on Science and Global Security. She has extensive experience in Government, including as a program examiner with the National Security Division at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Timur Kadyshev is a Senior Researcher with the natural sciences module of the Research and Transfer Project Arms Control and Emerging Technologies. Previously he worked as a Senior Research Scientist at the Moscow’s Center for Arms Control, Energy, and Environmental Studies, where he conducted research and supervised a course on Technical Aspects of Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

Tong Zhao is a senior fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program and Carnegie China, Carnegie’s East Asia-based research center on contemporary China. He is the author of “Tides of Change: China’s Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines and Strategic Stability” and “Narrowing the U.S.-China Gap on Missile Defense: How to Help Forestall a Nuclear Arms Race.”
Zia Mian is a physicist and co-director of Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security. He is a co-founder of the Physicist Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction and has served on the board of the Arms Control Association.

Oppenheimer and the Legacy of the Manhattan Project: Current Challenges in Nuclear Arms Control | University of Toronto
2024-09-19 15:00 - 16:30 (America/Toronto)
Abstract
Eighty years ago, Robert Oppenheimer led an industrial-scale effort with more than 130,000 employees to create the nuclear fission weapons used to end World War II. With the United States and its allies facing totalitarian aggressors in the European and Pacific theaters, many elite scientists, engineers and technicians supported the Manhattan Project through their scientific and technological innovations.
Today, nine countries possess nuclear weapons. Nuclear non-proliferation diplomacy is increasingly difficult. Important arms control treaties have been terminated: The Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Open Skies Treaty. Most recently, Russia has paused its participation in the inspection regime of the New START treaty.
The colloquium will review consequences of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism and explain the system of arms control treaties that have been put into place to contain this threat. We will then review the challenges different arms control agreements have been facing.
Speaker: Dr. Matthias Grosse Perdekamp

Reforming Nuclear Weapons policy, Plutonium Problems, and How Physicists Can Help | Simon Fraser University
2024-10-04
Colloquium Abstract: Physicists invented nuclear weapons over seventy-five years ago. Today, they still threaten humanity with catastrophe and, recently, this risk has been increasing. The US has over 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons plus thousands more inactive or retired. Current policy calls for maintaining and “modernizing” about 4,000 nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, at the cost of several tens of billions of dollars per year and significant risks to the environment and public health. Physicists can play an important role in providing scientific oversight and advocating for reform. I will discuss issues associated with plutonium pit production as a case study.
Further details on the plutonium pit issue: Modern thermonuclear weapons contain plutonium pits, which are hollow spherical shells of plutonium metal, as part of their fission triggers. These pits are inherently difficult, costly and hazardous to produce. The Rocky Flats pit production plant, near Denver, Colorado, was closed because of environmental infractions in 1992. Since then, pit production expertise has been maintained at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Current US policy calls for the production of 80 pits per year by 2030, despite the National Nuclear Security Administration (within the Department of Energy) acknowledging that this is unachievable. Furthermore, the justification for this production goal is controversial, as is the construction of a new production facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which is to cost over ten billion dollars and will pose significant risks to the surrounding community. The public deserves better and more transparent study of the policy options.
Speaker: Dr. Curtis Asplund

The Growing Danger of Nuclear Weapons (and What Physicists Can do About it) | University of Manitoba
2024-10-04
Colloquium Abstract
The world is in a precarious place right now and nuclear risk is higher than it has been in decades. The war in Ukraine has brought latent fears about nuclear war back to the surface. In recent years, the US has withdrawn from several arms control agreements that constrained US and Russian arsenals, and the last remaining treaty with Russia expires in 2026. Both the US and Russia are engaged in building a new generation of nuclear weapons. Physicists were, and still are, key actors in the nuclear weapons enterprise. From the very beginning of the nuclear weapons story, physicists have engaged policymakers about nuclear dangers and advocated for policies to reduce them. Given the growing risks, physicists need to renew their role in educating the public and policymakers.

Speaker
Tara Drozdenko

U.S. Missile Defense Programs | Illinois State University
2024-10-08
Title: U.S. Missile Defense Programs: A Case Study in the Interaction of Science, Technology, and Public Policy

Abstract
During the past 70 years, the United States has spent $400 billion on ballistic missile defense, mostly on systems intended to intercept nuclear-armed intercontinental-range missiles that might be launched against the United States. But would these systems be able to defend effectively against an attack by such missiles? As I will describe, despite decades of effort, no missile defense system thus far developed has been shown to be effective against realistic ICBM threats. (ICBMs are ballistic missiles with a range of more than 3,500 nautical miles.) In particular, the capabilities of the current U.S. systems intended to defend against the nuclear-armed ICBMs that North Korea has deployed are relatively low, and are likely to remain low for at least the next 15 years. The ability of these systems to defend against the ICBMs deployed by Russia and China is even less. Despite the ineffectiveness of these systems, their existence—and proposals for new defensive systems—have spurred the deployment by U.S. adversaries of new nuclear weapons designed to overcome them. I will discuss how scientists and the general public can help address this danger.

About the speaker

Frederick Lamb is a Research Professor of Physics and of Astronomy, the Brand and Monica Fortner Chair of Theoretical Astrophysics Emeritus, and a core faculty member in the Arms Control and Domestic & International Security Program at the University of Illinois. An expert on space policy, ballistic missiles and missile defenses, and the technical aspects of nuclear test bans, he has been a consultant to the Defense Department, national laboratories, and Congressional committees. He co-chaired the American Physical Society’s 2003 study of boost-phase missile defense and is chairing its current study of missile defenses. The current focus of his scientific research is high-energy and relativistic astrophysics and dense matter. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the APS. He shared the 2005 Leo Szilard Award of the APS for his leadership of the 2003 study of missile defense and received the 2021 APS Five Sigma Physicist Award for his leadership of the current study. He shared the 2022 Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society for his contributions to the success of NASA’s NICER X-ray astronomy mission.

For more biographical information, see https://physics.illinois.edu/people/directory/profile/fkl

Nuclear Fusion | Colloquium at Illinois State University
2024-10-22
Speaker: Dr. Stewart Prager
This talk is part of the Twelve Thousand Bombs seminar series.
The series on nuclear weapons included four eminent scholars and public figures speaking at ISU. The series, sponsored by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, was inaugurated in 2023 and aims to raise awareness of nuclear weapons issues in the Bloomington-Normal community.
“Nuclear weapons will be on everyone’s radar this election cycle as Americans assess the fitness of the candidates to exercise the president’s nuclear authority,” according to Dr. Matt Caplan, the series organizer and professor in the Department of Physics. “With the U.S. preparing to spend $1.5 trillion modernizing its arsenal, nuclear weapons policy may be a defining feature of the next president’s administration. This is not an issue that can be overlooked this election.”

Actionable Ideas for Nuclear Threat Reduction | University of Alabama
2024-10-23
Abstract
In this talk, I will give a brief overview of the resurgent role of nuclear weapons in national security strategies, the threat that they pose to the public, and potential risk mitigation approaches. Recent events, including the U.S. withdrawal from arms control treaties and the pursuit of new nuclear weapons capabilities in the nine nuclear weapons states, suggest we may be facing a revived nuclear arms race with its dangerous consequences. In this context, during the past three years, a group of US physical scientists has held more than 100 colloquia on nuclear weapons, reaching more than 4,000 attendees, and recruited over 850 scientists to the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction through which scientists educate themselves and then help educate Congress about the renewed risks of nuclear war and the possibilities for reducing those risks. Members have engaged in several advocacy campaigns aimed at reducing the threat of nuclear weapons by preventing the resumption of explosive nuclear testing, extending the New START treaty, and promoting the adoption of a no-first-use policy.
Speaker: Dr. Angela Di Fulvio

Auburn University
2024-11-08
Speaker:
Dr. Stewart Prager
More information will be available closer to the event.

How to Avert the Coming Arms Race | University of Saskatchewan
2024-12-03 03:30 - 04:30 (America/New_York) | Virtual
Abstract
China, Russia, and the United States are ramping up their nuclear weapons capabilities in a replay of the Cold War. We survived the nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union largely by luck. The close calls of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the War Scare of 1983 frightened leaders in both countries, and led to landmark arms control and arms reduction agreements. Intervention by scientists and the public played a major role. Triggered by the U.S. withdrawal from the Nixon-era Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, Russia and China are deploying new weapons to circumvent U.S. ABM capabilities, while the U.S. is modernizing its land, sea, and air-based nuclear weapons. Here I describe four major elements of a possible initiative to turn around this situation and assure strategic stability, while reducing nuclear arsenals. 1) Limit Ballistic Missile Defenses, 2) Eliminate silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, 3) Ban sub-strategic nuclear arms in Europe, and 4) Ban nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles. This talk was sponsored by the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction, https://physicistscoalition.org/. We invite all scientists to join us.
About the Speaker
Robert J. Goldston is a Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University. He received his B.A. in Physics from Harvard University, and his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Princeton University. He was director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), 1997 – 2009. He is Associated Faculty with the Program on Science and Global Security, and was acting director in Spring 2015. Goldston won the American Physical Society “Excellence in Plasma Physics” award in 1988 and chaired the American Physical Society Physics Policy Committee 2007–2009. He won the Fusion Power Associates Leadership Award in 2001, the Nuclear Fusion “Most Outstanding Paper” prize for 2012, and was named a “Leading Global Thinker” by Foreign Policy Magazine in 2014. He is a long-time U.S. representative on the ITER Science and Technology Advisory Committee. He serves on the board of the Council for a Livable World.
Use this link to attend

University of Alberta | Oppenheimer and the Legacy of the Manhattan Project: Current Challenges in Nuclear Arms Control
2025-01-24 15:00 - 17:00 (Asia/Krasnoyarsk)
Abstract
Eighty years ago, Robert Oppenheimer led an industrial-scale effort with more than 130,000 employees
to create the nuclear fission weapons used to end World War II. With the United States and its allies facing
totalitarian aggressors in the European and Pacific theaters, many elite scientists, engineers and technicians
supported the Manhattan Project through their scientific and technological innovations.
Today, nine countries possess nuclear weapons. Nuclear non-proliferation diplomacy is increasingly difficult.
Important arms control treaties have been terminated: The Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, the Iran
Nuclear Deal and the Open Skies Treaty. Most recently, Russia has paused its participation in the inspection
regime of the New START treaty.
The colloquium will review consequences of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism and explain the system of
arms control treaties that have been put into place to contain this threat. We will then review the challenges
different arms control agreements have been facing.
Speaker
Dr. Matthias Grosse Perdekamp

US Policy and Nuclear Threat Reduction Challenges in 2025
2025-02-28 12:00 - 13:15 (America/New_York)
Abstract: This webinar will share expert views on current and emerging crises and opportunities for nuclear threat reduction efforts in the United States, and introduce the near-term nuclear policy advocacy goals of the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction.
REGISTER HERE
Topics and Speakers:

Moderator – Zia Mian, Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, and member of the Steering Committee Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction.
US nuclear weapons programs – Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists
The US Iron Dome program – Laura Grego, Senior scientist and Research Director, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
Opportunities for arms control talks – Xiaodon Liang, Senior Policy Analyst, Nuclear Weapons Policy and Disarmament, Arms Control Association
Physicists Coalition advocacy goals for 2025 – Stewart Prager, Professor emeritus of astrophysical sciences, Princeton University, and chair of the Steering Committee, Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction

Webinar:US Policy and Nuclear Threat Reduction Challenges in 2025
2025-02-28 12:00 - 13:15 (America/New_York)
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Webinar: “Golden Dome”: A Costly, Destabilizing, and Ineffective Missile Defense System
2025-06-23 13:00 - 14:30 (America/New_York)
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In May 2025, President Donald Trump approved the Defense Department’s architecture and implementation plan for “Golden Dome”—a multilayered missile defense system incorporating ground-, sea-, and space-based components designed to protect all U.S. territory from any scale of missile attack by any country. In this webinar, three physicists specializing in missile defense will examine why the proposed system would be technically ineffective, carry projected costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars or more, and exacerbate global arms race dynamics. They will also discuss how “Golden Dome” could heighten crisis instability and ultimately increase the risk of nuclear war.
Speakers include

Dr. Laura Grego, Senior Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists
Dr. Fred Lamb, Research Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Igor Moric, Research Scholar, Program in Science and Global Security (SGS), Princeton University
Dr. Zia Mian (moderator), Co-Director, Program in Science and Global Security (SGS), Princeton University

REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Igor Moric Slides
Fred Lamb Slides

Webinar: The Russell-Einstein Manifesto at 70: Scientists Advancing Peace and Global Security
2025-07-31 13:00 - 14:30 (America/New_York)
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On 9 July 1955, Bertrand Russell delivered a public statement in London on the dangers of nuclear weapons. It was cosigned by Albert Einstein, in his last public political act, and has come to be known as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. The Manifesto led in 1957 to the founding of the Pugwash Conferences for Science and World Affairs, which received the 1995 Peace Nobel Prize. This presentation will introduce Pugwash, its work during the Cold War, and its current status and priorities at a time of grave nuclear dangers and challenges. It will highlight some ways scientists today can act on the Manifesto’s call.
Speakers: –

Karen Hallberg, Secretary General, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
Matthew Evangelista, President White Professor of History and Political Science Emeritus, Cornell University
Talia Weiss, Physics Ph.D. student at Yale University, Director of International Student/Young Pugwash (ISYP)
Zia Mian (moderator), Co-Director, Princeton Program on Science and Global Security.

Resources:
Karen Hallberg Slides
Matthew Evangelista Slides
Talia Weiss Slides
Additional Readings:

Zia Mian, Out of the Nuclear Shadow: Scientists and the Struggle against the Bomb, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 2015
Fetter, R. Garwin, and F. N. von Hippel, Nuclear Weapons Dangers and Policy Options, Physics Today, April 2018
Zia Mian, Stewart Prager, and Frank N. von Hippel, Once More Into the Breach: Physicists Mobilize Again to Counter the Nuclear Threat, Arms Control Today, May 2021
Zia Mian, Stewart Prager, and Frank von Hippel, Confronting the bomb – Physicists have rallied against nuclear weapons for 80 years — and must do so again, APS News, March 6, 2025

U.S. Government Assessments of Nuclear War and Nuclear Terrorism Risks: Findings of a National Academies Study
2025-11-03 12:30 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
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Abstract
A recent congressionally-mandated study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine examined U.S. government methods for assessing nuclear war and nuclear terrorism risks, how those assessments are used to develop strategy and policy, and their limitations and gaps. In this webinar, the co-chairs and director of this National Academies study will discuss how US nuclear war and terrorism assessments are generated and some findings and key recommendations. These include a need for the methods used to create nuclear war risk analyses to consider a broader scope of pathways and outcomes, and possible weaknesses in how U.S. Strategic Command generates its daily “Risk of Strategic Deterrence Failure” assessment for each nuclear-armed adversary. The findings also highlight the need for the current limited assessments of the consequences of nuclear explosions resulting from strategic deterrence failure to include other physical and environmental effects of nuclear weapons, as well as psychological, societal, and political consequences of nuclear weapons use.
The report is available for free download at: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/27745/risk-analysis-methods-for-nuclear-war-and-nuclear-terrorism-phase
Speakers:

Dr. Jenny Heimberg, Study Director of the Committee on Risk Analysis Methods for Nuclear War and Nuclear Terrorism, and Acting Director of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
William C. Ostendorff, Co-Chair of the Committee on Risk Analysis Methods for Nuclear War and Nuclear Terrorism, and former Principal Deputy Administrator of the US National Nuclear Security Administration
Dr. M. Élisabeth Paté-Cornell, Co-Chair of the Committee on Risk Analysis Methods for Nuclear War and Nuclear Terrorism, and Professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University

Speakers’ full biographies:
Dr. Jennifer (Jenny) Heimberg has worked at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine since 2011. She is currently the acting director for the Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC). Most recently, she was the inaugural director for the Strategic Council for Research Excellence, Integrity, and Trust, an effort initiated and led by the President of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition, she has directed studies related to nuclear risks, nuclear security, nonproliferation, and nuclear environmental cleanup. Other topics include reproducibility and replicability in science (Reproducibility and Replicability in Science, 2019) and estimating the costs of climate damages (Valuing Climate Damages: Updating the Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide, 2017). Prior to coming to the National Academies, she worked as a program manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL). She received a BS in physics from Georgetown University, a BSEE from Catholic University of America, and a PhD in physics from Northwestern University.
Dr. M.-Elisabeth Paté-Cornell is the Burt and Deedee McMurtry Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, a Courtesy Professor of the Stanford Department of Aero-Astro, and a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) of the Stanford Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies. Her specialty is engineering risk analysis, with applications to complex systems (space, medical, offshore oil platforms, cyber security, etc.). Her work has been based on probabilistic and stochastic models, and on Artificial Intelligence. She has been a member of the Army Science Board, of the Air Force Science Board and of the Board of the Navy Post-Graduate School, which she chaired. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the French Académie des Technologies, and the NASA Advisory Council. She was a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (2001 to 2008). She holds a BS in Mathematics and Physics in Marseille (France), an Engineering degree (Applied Math/CS) from the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble (France), and from Stanford University an MS in Operations Research (OR) and a PhD in Engineering-Economic Systems (EES). She is the author or coauthor of more than a hundred publications including several Best Paper awards. From the Society for Risk Analysis (of which she is a Fellow and past President) she was awarded the 2002 Distinguished Achievement Award and the 2025 Distinguished Educator Award. She received the Ramsey Medal of Decision Analysis from INFORMS in 2010, an Honorary PhD from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, in 2016, and the IEEE Ramo medal for Systems Engineering and Science in 2021.
Bill Ostendorff currently serves on the board of directors of Sandia National Laboratory, Global Laser Enrichment and Cavendish Nuclear USA. He also serves on INPO’s Advisory Council and chairs the Decommissioning Nuclear Safety Review Board for Three Mile Island Unit 2. From 2016-2021, he served as the Class of 1960 Distinguished Visiting Professor in National Security at the US Naval Academy. Mr. Ostendorff has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate on three occasions in both Republican and Democratic administrations. He served as Principal Deputy Administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in the Bush administration (2007-2009) and as a Commissioner at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (2010-2016) in the Obama administration prior to joining the Naval Academy faculty. From 2003 to 2007, he served as counsel and staff director for the Strategic Forces Subcommittee with oversight responsibilities for the Department of Energy’s Atomic Energy Defense Activities as well as the Department of Defense’s space, missile defense and intelligence programs. Mr. Ostendorff was an officer in the United States Navy from 1976 until he retired in 2002 with the rank of captain. Entering the Rickover Nuclear Navy, he served on six submarines. During his naval career, he commanded a nuclear attack submarine and a nuclear attack submarine squadron. Mr. Ostendorff earned a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from the United States Naval Academy and law degrees from the University of Texas and Georgetown University. He is the recipient of the US Nuclear Industry Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the American Nuclear Society’s Eisenhower Award.

Assessing 80 Years of Diplomatic Efforts for Nuclear Disarmament: Marking the Legacy of UN General Assembly Resolution 1, 1946
2026-01-30 11:00 - 12:30 (America/New_York)
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January 2026 marks the 80th anniversary of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1(1), the first resolution to be adopted, which established a UN Commission tasked to “make specific proposals for the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons.” The resolution placed the newly created United Nations, international diplomacy, and international law at the heart of the debate over how to address the challenge of nuclear weapons posed to humanity. This webinar will reflect on eight decades of multilateral efforts to advance nuclear disarmament. These include the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970 and contains unmet obligations to end the arms race at an early date and achieve nuclear disarmament, and which 191 states have joined. There is also the much newer Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which entered into force five years ago, in January 2021, and has already been accepted by 99 states. The discussion will cover current and imminent challenges for multilateral nuclear diplomacy, the crisis of nuclear arms control, and prospects for the upcoming spring 2026 NPT Review Conference, which follows back-to-back Review Conferences in 2012 and 2015 that failed to reach agreement, as well as expectations for the first TPNW Review Conference, to be held in late 2026.
Speakers:
– Izumi Nakamitsu is United Nations Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
– Patricia Lewis, a physicist, is past director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and co-chair of the TPNW Scientific Advisory Group (TBC).
– Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova is Director of the Nonproliferation Program at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation and Japan Chair for a World without Nuclear Weapons.
– Zia Mian (moderator) is Co-Director of the Princeton University Program on Science and Global Security and a co-founder of the Physicists Coalition.
